


Anathema

by Havenesc



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Batfam Bonding, Batfamily Feels, Bruce Isn't a Great Dad, Family Feels, Fixing some shit, Gen, Memories, Recovery, Some long talks, but also fluff, but he will get there, idk man do you know how long it's been since i've written
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2020-02-04 12:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havenesc/pseuds/Havenesc
Summary: When a new crime lord in Gotham gets the upper hand, Red Hood and Batman are dealt crippling blows. When faced with near death and an inability to hide behind their masks in the weeks after, Jason and Bruce have to deal with some old haunts between them.





	1. caught under water

**Author's Note:**

> aw geez ric, i'm writing. 
> 
> After a several-year hiatus I'm finally picking up some serious stuff beyond a few drabbles here and there. I haven't read eeeeverything to do with Jay cause I'm relatively new to the comic scene, but also, canon tends to disappoint me sometimes. So this un-beta'd monstrosity happened. Feel free to beat me with a stick. 
> 
> This will probably be the most "graphic" chapter - the biggest contents I have planned for this is like, idk, talking and feelings and healing. I'm almost done with the second chapter already, so I plan to release them when I have the next chapter nearly finished. Hope you like what you see so far?? Cheers.

377 Park Lane is one hell of a tedious stakeout, Jason decides.

It’s been four hours with zero activity – the Bat isn’t much of a talker (not that he ever _was_ one) and Jason can feel a dull ache in his knees from alternating between standing and crouching for so long. This was supposed to be a jackpot of almost _four months’_ worth of tracking one Duncan Bates, a drug lord who’d moved up from the Midwest and settled most of his late business in the seedy underbelly of Gotham.

Not much moved past Red Hood. At least, not much moved and _kept moving._ But Bates seemed to know more about Hood than the other way around, and he was pretty damn smart.  Jason nearly died twice over from bait laid by one cold sonuvabitch. (Southern hospitality, his _ass._ )

It was a good thing Jason was adaptable. The mantle of Red Hood laid low for a while, watching and waiting and dealing crippling strikes to the rival organization. This was _his_ turf, _his_ underworld _._ Batman’s home base wasn’t enough of a deterrent for _most_ of Gotham’s criminals, but either Bates didn’t notice or he liked stepping up to the plate.

“ _Choose your battles,_ ” Jason had told Bruce. “ _Pissing contest with_ me _, or smoking him out._ ”

But the more Red Hood’s uncovered of Bates’ operation, the more the rats scattered, and pretty soon it was starting to look like this was something bigger. The family was a _last resort,_ but it was still an option, and when the vermin kept resurfacing like a bad game of whack-a-mole, he made a few calls.  

In his defense, he hadn’t been killing.

Correction: he was using rubber bullets. Whether they died from a collapsed trachea or cranial hematoma, that’s on _them._

If Batman had caught wind of the handful of deaths, he hadn’t mentioned it. He doesn’t mention a lot of things between them these days – though it’s not like Jason made it particularly easy. Not that he _wants_ to hash shit out, because conversations between them that go beyond strict business and tasks at hand usually turn into arguments, and arguments turn into fist fights, and then the next thing they _both_ know one of them is on the brink of death and nobody speaks to anybody for about a solid six months. No, he’s quite fine with letting that tension hang in the air. Add it in with all the rest.

“ _Christ,_ gentleman,” Jason groans low under his breath, helmet rolling as he tries to loosen the growing stiffness in his neck. “Any day now.”

He briefly considers his gallows humor, some liner about how he’d die again before they showed their hides, but so far this night has been – well, not _decent,_ but not god-awful. The silence between them went almost undisturbed, and he didn’t feel like really kicking up a rock or two. Not tonight.

“Nightwing.” Jason tabs his comm link in his ear, hearing the crackle of the line come to life on the other end. “Catch anything?”

“It’s quiet tonight,” Nightwing replies after a beat, sounding tired. “Scouted a few blocks out in our direction – Robin and I’ve got nothing.”

“Tt. A waste of resources.” The demon-spawn butts in over the comm, words coated in disapproval like usual. “There are better things we can be doing, and yet we’re waiting around for _Hood’s_ fantasy little tea party.”

Batman chooses not to intervene, though Jason knows damn well he can hear everything. “Feel free to jump right on in there, Robin, if you’re so sure.”

The “ _tt”_ somehow comes off as even _more_ condescending.   
The replacement joins in after about a minute. “Red Hood – Black Bat and I don’t see much either. It’s a pretty dead night.”

Jason’s brow furrows. He _knows_ his intel was good for a meeting tonight. Paid damn good money and dug into too many bullet wounds for it to be bunk. It’s an old infrastructure, something Wayne Industries hadn’t gotten around to renovating yet, with exposed beams and about a quarter of thirty floors sagging against time. It’s nothing unusual about the rest of the block, squared between a few other condemned buildings. Escape routes. Casual decay. It’s quite literally a _rat’s nest,_ and yet nothing has come to show of the deigned meeting.

 “Hey, B-man.” Jason glances over at the cowl from his crouched position. Batman’s scanning the horizon, a deeper frown on his face than usual. The wind howls through the platform’s metal floor, like a breeze in a canyon between them.

“When do minnows scatter?”

_When there’s something bigger in the water._

The shot cracks right through the side of his helmet, the force of it toppling Jason backwards hard through the railing of the billboard and sending him down a twenty-foot drop onto the roof below.

“Hood!” Batman’s low voice rings out just as shots begin to ring out like fireworks, popping off from what Jason thinks must be five fuckmillion directions. He hits the rooftop flat on his back, air whooshing out of his lungs harshly as the Kevlar takes most of the impact. There’s a burning sensation on the side of his head – _searing_ – and it takes half a second for him to realize the bullet is lodged flush against his temple, stuck in the infrastructure of the helmet it pierced.

Jesus _Fuck._

The flutter of the cape is muffled by the rain of hellfire and brimstone as Batman touches down next to him, crouching almost flat against the sunken in roof. Bruce’s face looms amongst the stars bursting behind Jason’s eyes as he quickly checks for bleeding.

None. “Hood, we have to move.”

Ah yes, gotta love that paternal instinct.

Jason growls, pulling his pistols as he lurches to his feet, but Bruce stops him from taking aim with a firm grip on his arm just as another slough of gunfire rains against them. “ _Now,_ Hood!”

Anger blooms in Jay’s chest at being told – by _Bruce,_ no less- what to do and when to do it, but as a bullet whizzes past close enough to ruffle the collar of his jacket, he swears violently and holsters his guns.

“—the hell – “ Nightwing crackles in, his voice peppered with the distant sound of gunfire. He’s maybe a few blocks off. “Batman, Red Hood, copy.”

Jason’s already sprinting alongside Bruce, ignoring the ache in his sides (most of ‘em bruised, he thinks the armor saved his ribs from cracking) as he vaults over an exposed air vent. He hears Batman’s voice both in person and over the comm link as Bruce grunts and contacts the others.

“Nightwing. Bates set it up. Hood and I are withdrawing – “

“Withdrawing _how?_ Bats, they –”

Tim’s sentence goes dark in Jason’s ear as he catches the faint, _faint_ glimpse of a scope glinting just ahead of them. It’s almost not there, the way the neon sign below catches just at the right second from a twentieth-story window, so fast he’s almost sure it’s something from his imagination. Still, he fists a hand in Batman’s cape and throws on the brakes so fast he scatters the gravel.

“Batman, get back, get _back_ \---”

There’s not much place to hide, Jason realizes a second too late – but Bruce seems to catch on fast enough and narrowly dodges a sniper’s shot to the middle of his chest. It doesn’t miss entirely, catches on the suit and rips through the outer layer, but it doesn’t pierce the suit all the way through. The duo darts opposite directions, narrowly avoiding a second high-powered shot. Jason’s blood is pumping through his ears as he drops over the side of the building, spearing a grappling hook into the old brick as he swung out and crashed into the interior.

The gunfire is muffled, dissipating by the second, but Jason’s not so sure he wants to stick around and find out just how determined Bates’ men are.

“Red Hood, “ Oracle’s voice is clipped, broken up by bad reception in the old walls, but Jason can hear her clearly enough as he darts through an old office and vaults down a flight of stairs. She doesn’t wait to hear him confirm before she starts talking quickly.

“They’ve already got people on both west and east of your current location. I have hotspots to the South too – careful, you’re getting close to them. Nightwing, Robin, and Red Robin are headed en route to help assist with these goons.”

“Sounds like a bad day for them,” Jason snarks back, pulling his pistols from their holsters as he bolts. He _could_ switch the bullets, if he wanted – he always packed _real_ clips just in case – and it’s not like Bates’ men wouldn’t _deserve_ it ---

The distant sound of an explosion rattles the building beneath Jason’s feet, dust and loose mortar raining down from the floor above him as he slows to a stop. It wasn’t too close – maybe a building over – but his gut twisted. Nightwing beat him to the punch as he lifted his hand to the comms.

“Batman?” Dick’s concern rang loud and clear. Jason wondered what exactly the rest of the team’s visuals were. “Batman, come in.”

No response.

“Ah, shit.” Jason muttered, tapping his earpiece as he halted his descent down the old stairs. Another office floor- paper, looked like, with big windows half covered in dust or half busted out. Big windows that Jason could see the thick smoke begin to filter through. Smell the ash. “I’m goin’ for him.”

“Wait, Red Hood,” Red Robin cut in. “Wait up for us.”

“You guys have _plenty_ to deal with right now,” Jason snarked, pointedly reminding what lay for the team at the rooftops should they get too close. “I’m closest to him down here. If anything’s fucked up it’s not like you guys are gonna get there before _I_ do.”

“Remember who _called_ us for this, _Hood,_ ” Damian’s biting words glanced off of Jason with a drawn-out eye roll as he jogged forward, trying to see if there was easy access to the building next over. “Don’t act like you are more capable – and certainly not as capable as _me_.”

“Do you – _hng_ –” Jason kicks through the old frame with empty panes on the window and pulls himself through them, clicking a new grapple from his belt into his gun, “ – _ever_ shut up?”

He’s launching through the window then, twisting to get the angle on the building over through the smoke. A bit of a thrill courses through him as he fires off, waits for the second it takes to start falling and for the grapple to catch, and in the next moment he’s leaping right into the heat of the fire.

Almost quite literally. His boots slam on hot wood, simmering as it smolders beneath his feet, and it groans beneath his weight. Right. Nobody’s about to set themselves on fire, especially not like that, so Hood steps off and peers warily through the gigantic hole in the floor.

“Hood, _wait,_ ” Oracle instructs sternly, but Jason ignores her warning as he attempts to see through the smoke. The built-in SCBA is supposed to keep him from choking on smoke, but the heat and smoke filter past the hole at the side of his head and make his eyes water.

Just as he’s ready to drop down, further into the belly of the beast, a door crashes in behind him. Three guys – none he recognizes but judging by the suits and silver cursive _B_ pins pressed to the lapel of their jackets, it’s not hard to guesstimate just which bunch of goons they’re with. One is bloodied to hell, sandwiched in between two supports. The trio in general looks almost comically roughed up; Jason suspects they weren’t expecting to get caught in the crossfire.

They haven’t noticed him yet. Jason shields himself behind a concrete pillar as they each shuffle into the room, guns at the ready. Not coughing is _hard_ when there’s this much damn smoke in the room. Hard to see, too. But the guys are a whole lot less prepared than he is, and they’re quickly falling victim to their boss’ endeavors.

“He coulda – “ Cough – “He coulda _killed_ us.”

“I don’t think we were really on his mind when he greenlit that _fucking rocket,_ Charles!”

A moan – Jason thinks it’s from the beat up one – and the first man makes a sound between a groan and a sob and just all in all sounds pitiful. “Well, we’re _stuck_ up here anyways, so if that didn’t get us, the fire will. Or the smoke.”

“It’s your lucky day, gents,” Jason’s already looming over them, having flanked them around the office’s layout. The barrel of his pistol presses up threateningly against the base of one of their skulls. “’Cause I’m here to put you out of your misery.”

The second still-conscious goon goes to lift his gun, but Jason crosses his left over his right, aiming right between the eyes. Rubber or not, that shit would do some real damage either way. “Ah-ah. Nice try. Real cute.”

“ _Hood,_ ” Spits Left, face smeared with ash and sweat.

“There’s a _Red_ in front of that, but hey, a lot of stuff in here is red, so I’ll give you a pass.” Jason leans in close enough that Left – Charles? – has to lean back, else get knocked in the forehead. “I’m about to add even more red, if you don’t tell me where Duncan is.”

Right – maybe he’s Charles, who knows -- scoffs. “You think _we_ know?” He gestures, not even flinching as he knocks his head slightly into the barrel of Jason’s gun. “You think we know why the fuck _we’re_ here right now?”

“Bad choices, lots of greed, superiority complex – all that stuff that’s crashing down around you, so on and so forth, so-and-so said so-and- _what_ , I’ve got a list going. But I don’t really have time to give you the run down on _your_ mistakes.” Jason leaned his guns into each of the men’s heads, gritting his teeth. “ _Where_ is he?”

Left winces at the pressure but doesn’t fess up. “We don’t know!”

“Bullshit.”

The building groans, flames licking a little higher from the hole the rocket tore open. This building is _old_ – flames take over the wooden floor with impressive speed, and Jason can feel sweat start to slide down his neck. Part of him knows he should be worried about _Batman,_ about him and his tiny band of codependent birds. The bigger part of him, the way more important part of him, wants info. Batman’s gotten out of worse. He’ll live.

(He hopes.)

“What’s it gonna be, fellas? The fire or me?” Jason’s insistence cuts over the snap of air leaving burning boards. “We’re both pretty goddamn stubborn forces of nature.”

The two men look down at their companion and then at one another, nervous and already breathing hard from the smoke. “Been hangin’ out at a nightclub in underground,” Right says, backing into Jason’s gun as a flame draws near. “Blue Dahlia or somethin’ like that, fuck, dude, _we don’t get paid enough for this please_ \----”

Blue Dahlia. The name jostles something in his memory, but he takes the recognition at face value and stops. Now’s not the time to travel down memory lane when he’s surrounded by fire and smoke in an empty high-rise that _could_ look like a warehouse floor if anybody really wanted to squint at it.

The floor groans as if on cue. Jason lifts one of his pistols and fires into the ceiling, making the mooks flinch.

“Get to the ground floor before it all goes down.” Jason orders. “You’re lucky I have bigger fish to fry right now.”

He can find more answers on that later. As the men scramble for the exit, Jason reaches up to his ear.

“Anybody got updates?”

“Bat --- floor –” Oracle’s voice cuts in and out, interrupted by what Todd only _assumes_ is the hellfire and brimstone almost at his feet. “Get –”

“ _Floor,_ Oracle, _floor_  - is he even _here?”_

“Re— _Out_ —"

He turns, growling at the bad signal, wondering if he should just cut it down the stairs like the kooks he just released or if Batman really _was_ still here, knocked unconscious just one careful drop through the floor away. The sweat’s starting to really stick to him now, and part of him thinks leather and body armor in a hot room really, _really_ wasn’t the best of ideas ---

“ _Hood, get out of there!”_

Oracle’s warning comes just as he hears the high-pitched whistle in the air and Jason _bolts._

Away from the wall, away from the windows, he’ll find an exit, he was trained for adaptability. But the whistle gets louder at a rate faster than he can carry himself. A rocket bursts through the window and _explodes._

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling as he gets knocked back. Not an unfamiliar feeling as he feels ribs crack for real when he hits a precarious-looking concrete support column. And, Jason thinks with dread, it is _all too familiar_ to hear the final moments of a building coming down around him.

 

* * *

 

 

Jason Todd should be dead.

Like, _really_ dead.

Technically, he is. He knows all the legal paperwork says it. Black Mask hadn’t even been able to trace his true identity, though not for lack of trying (and he wore a goddamn _bat_ on his chest, even). He should be deader than old roadkill on pavement, and by god he knows he _feels_ dead. You only cheated death so many times, and last time wasn’t even his damn choice.

“Shake n’ bake, Hood. Get up.”

He can hear the sound of fingers snapping close to him, probably right in front of his nose.

“Shit. Think he’s dead already?”

“No.” The sound of fabric rustling. “His pulse is strong enough.”

Jason’s brow furrows  as he stirs, smoked-out lungs seizing and making him cough. Bad move – the entire left side of his body lights up like white hot iron, and his waning strength turns his cry to a low groan. A familiar voice chuckles.

“See? Told you. How you doin’ there, Hood?”

Someone forces his eye open roughly, small flashlight flickering across his vision. Jason flinches, teeth baring as he tries to yank his head from the touch, but the man fists his hair and hauls him closer. Bates leans into Jason’s view, seeming rather unperturbed. He’s so close Jason can smell the over-priced cologne on him.

“Take it easy. Where’s all the hostility comin’ from, huh?” Duncan releases his death grip, letting Jason’s head fall back to the cool ground. “From _you,_ from _Penguin,_ from _Batman_ over there – “ He points somewhere over his shoulder Jason can’t see, “Since I waltzed in here, you guys have been up my ass nine ways from Sunday. Ain’t nobody doin’ nothing except making a living.”

 At least _seven_ news clippings in the past month of death by overdose from a new drug flashes behind Jason’s eyes. His glare narrows behind his domino mask. “You’re….killing people.”

Christ, he’s torn up. Jay doesn’t dare take his eyes off Duncan, but he’s only really got one good eye to look out from, and every word is like inhaling shards of glass. He sees a glint out of the corner of his eye – a _bloodied_ sheen of metal – and judging on the proximity he knows he’s not going to like what he sees.

Bates’ laugh takes up the entire room, loud enough to bounce off the walls. “Now that’s _ironic,_ isn’t it? The Red Hood, who has a problem when someone _else_ kills?”

….Alright. Yeah. So the change in his MO hasn’t quite made the rounds yet. He’s got him there.

“It’s not like anybody _I_ sell to makes a huge difference in Gotham.” Duncan tilts his head. “Crime Alley is slowly becoming a ghost district. Street rats suddenly stop wasting resources. We get kids off the street – _one_ way or another.” The white-clad suit begins to pace, his goons standing guard.

“Think of it like a _restoration_ project, Red. You ever seen anything on HGTV?”

Jason feels raw anger bubble up in him, but he can’t play his hand yet. If only he could set eyes on Bruce, see what kind of condition _he’s_ in. Who knows if he was caught up in the second blast, or if he’d just been surrounded and over-powered.

“Might’ve.. seen an episode or two.”

“So you get it. I’m just the contractor. Cleaning up this city one pest problem at a time.” Bates claps his hands together and stops. Jason doesn’t see his foot in time to brace before it’s coming down on his neck, heel grinding against his windpipe. He can’t even yelp.

“And I _really_ would appreciate if you and your little colony of _bat freaks_ didn’t go digging where they _shouldn’t._ ”

His voice is different now, harsher, not as nonchalant. Tonight must’ve really stirred up his plans, even if he’s holding a better hand right now.

Jason’ll take what he can get.

“Let the record show that I have not gone out of my way to disrupt _your_ business. So _don’t_ –” The heel pushes harder – “ _Disrupt_ —” Harder – “ _Mine._ ”

Just when Jason’s _really_ starting to turn blue, choking and trying to latch a death grip onto the man’s ankle, Bates steps off and revels in the way Jason sucks in a breath and immediately coughs.

“Don’t take it personal, Mr. Hood.” He’s leaning in again, closer still as he pats Jason’s cheek in a way that’s a little bit too harsh to be even mock-friendly, “This is just a _social call._ Stay on your lawn, and my boy, _I’ll_ stay on _mine.”_

Jason half-coughs, half-laughs and spits up blood. This guy is a rookie in Gotham. It’s all over his cheap, pulp dialogue and nice clean suit.

“It doesn’t work like that,” He heaves. “Just ask…Black Mask.”

A flicker of confusion crosses Bate’s face before he settles into a look of annoyance. He pulls a .44 Magnum – _Jason’s_.44, he realizes – and steps aside to give Jason a full view of the scene across the dingy room. Jason’s stomach bottoms out.

Bruce looks like _shit._ Propped up against collapsed rubble, the Dark Knight’s head is tilted back limply. There’s multiple entry wounds of various sizes across his chest, smattering the bat symbol with dark stains. His left leg is at wrong angles; there’s a slight bow of his uniform and blood soaked through his shin. Blood seeps from beneath his cowl, dredging down the front of his costume.  He’s lost blood – a _lot_ of blood – and for a moment Jason thinks Bates killed him for real. The man speaks before Jason can summon enough rage to go for the gun.

“Maybe it didn’t before, but it does now, son.” The gun cocks with a loud _ker-chk_ as Bates points it at Bruce. “You both have had a rough night. Let’s not make this go ugly.”

Jason doesn’t move, so he keeps talking. “You’re lucky I have as much patience as I do, and am as busy of a man as I am. I am going to _take my leave,_ and you are _not_ going to do a thing about it.”

As if on some weird, puppet-string orchestrated cue, the goons behind him move in unison, pointing their respective weapons at Jason as Bates steps into their circle of protection. Jason’s gaze is pulled back to Batman as they start to leave. Bates takes the opportunity to put in one last dig before he disappears.

“And Hood, son – be sure to get a tetanus shot. Rebar is _nasty.”_

His laugh echoes down the empty hall as Jason looks over, blanching at the sight. Four, maybe five feet of old rebar stuck out through his leather jacket, smeared with Jason’s blood from the top. Four inches poked out from his chest, just beneath his ribcage, and the end of it lay embedded in concrete. He’d been shish-ka-bobbed and speared right through.

Must have happened in the fall. Jason feels his heart rate speed up, leaping into his throat, and he has to fight to keep his breathing even. Shit. Fuck. Goddamit. _Fuck._ This was bad. For the both of them. He tastes iron in the back of his throat and coughs up more blood.

“Br-Batman?” He calls across the room. There’s maybe a good ten yards between them. Bruce doesn’t move.

If this doesn’t kill him, Dick will. If Dick doesn’t kill him, the demon brat will.

Of all the ways he thought of killing Bruce upon his return – this wasn’t one of them.

“Bats,” Jason tries again, a little louder this time. They must be in a part of the building that had missed most of the collapse. It’s not like Bates seemed concerned with an exit route. “Bats, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

But then, a quiet, tired groan.

“Aw, hell.” Jason let his head drop against the cool, dirty floor beneath him, trying to sound disappointed. “I thought you finally kicked it.”

Maybe if he could crack enough smartassery for the both of them, there’d be less of a chance of them dying. Nobody’s ever funny when they die in the movies. (And Jason can testify to the monument: he _definitely_ was not laughing the first time.)

Bruce coughs and winces beneath his cowl, head still tilted back. “No,” He finally says, quiet and strained. “They’ll have to try harder.”

“Yeah, well.” Jason groans again, feels the tremors start to set in his hands. Every breath is clipped; he can _feel_ the rod move, sliding against his ribcage, tugging at muscle and bone and probably very vital organs. Iron streams up from the back of his throat, bubbling and threatening to asphyxiate him if he breathes in at just the wrong moment. At least they took the decency of kicking off his helmet – it lay a few feet away, propped up politely. How nice of them.

“I think…. I think they tried pretty hard…  with me.”

It takes about four seconds to feel like he’s being stared at – three more for Bruce’s audible inhale to fill the room. Jason’s not looking at him, now; he’s more focused on the feeling of the floor, trying to keep himself grounded. Deep breaths are out, so scratch that off the list of shit you should do when you’re going into shock.

Some part of Jason’s mind hears the cackle of laughter, mad with glee. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand. He squeezes his good eye shut.

“Jason.”

The Batman. That’s right. He was here too. _Is_ here. For once.

“Stay with me, Jay.”

An alternate universe. He shows up in time, saves some crummy ass kid from a miserable fate. Jason makes a noncommittal sound and thinks he hears _Batman_ of all people swear. Alfred would have a conniption.

There’s a rustle of fabric and a groan, and a shuffle of footsteps follows closely, one rushed hobble at a time. Jason tries to swallow – blood gets stuck halfway through it and he chokes, spattering more blood across the floor in an already large ocean of it. The harsh movement makes him keen, teeth bloody as he grits them and clenches his hand into a fist.

“---Nightwing,” Batman says to nobody, and for a second Jason wonders who Nightwing is.

It takes him another second to realize someone has settled next to him. His energy is starting to slip at an alarming rate – he can’t crane his head, barely can even open his damn eyes – but Jason knows that the last thing to go is hearing. His breath hitches again, and it’s feeling more and more like he’s slowly slipping underwater.

“—Do you copy, Nightwing?” Pause. “If you can hear this… sending coordinates. Need an evac.”

Jason can’t remember a time he’s heard anything like _desperation_ in that voice.

Then again, you only start really realizing the little things when you’re not sure you’re going to see them anymore.

“Jason?” Bruce says his name like he’s calling role.

Jason hums. Or groans. Something in between.

“Talk to me.”

The first time Jason had died, it had been full of panic. His pulse had roared in his ears almost as loud as the Joker’s goading for him to beg, to cry, to scream for his partner. There was no peace in his final moments; it was everything and then nothing in one split second, and next thing he knew he was panicking six feet under in a buried coffin. He had died with desperation in his heart, alone and terrified and sending his first prayers ever that Batman might arrive before the timer hit 0:00.

A lot has changed since then. He doesn’t think of Batman anymore when he toes the line between life and death. It’s him or it’s nothing; nobody has ever had his back, _really_ had his back. He learned to stop believing in that lesson a long time ago.

Oh, how _ironic_ this whole situation is. It’s a lot of processing power that he can’t really afford (or even has, cause his brain’s not really working right when that much blood is _outside_ of his body).

He’s going to die right _next_ to Bruce. And there’s not much either of them can really do about it.

So maybe being honest isn’t going to speed up the process.

“…N’ver thank you.”

“Hm?”

“For this….for…trustin’ me.” Jason manages to open his eye, lets his neck relax enough to peer at Bruce through the crack of vision. “…Letyou down.”

Maybe it wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. But Jason knew if it weren’t for him – Bruce wouldn’t be sitting here nine kinds of fucked up, either.

“Never thanked you.”

Bruce’s voice lacks its usual on-duty stiffness. Just sounds tired and in pain. “You didn’t let me down, Jaylad.”

Jaylad. Jason misses that nickname. He misses a lot of other things, too.

“…Can I tell you s’m’n?”

“What?”

“I miss…it.”

“Miss what, Jay?”

Jason feels his pulse start to slow. He’s not worried at all.

“Home.”

_Home._ That’s the first time in a while he’s used that word. First time in several years. _Never_ a word in his vocabulary now. Red Hood didn’t have a home. Never would, either. That time has come and gone.

He feels a slight pressure against his temple and fingers entangle themselves gently into matted bits of hair. It hurts, at first; Jason winces, but relaxes as Bruce cards his hand quietly through his hair. A faint, warm trickle slowly pours down his temple.

“…Feels…nice.”

His eyes creep closed. Bruce says his name a few more times.

And then he slips away and Jason feels nothing at all.


	2. someone else's sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s his routine for a while, though not by choice. 
> 
> Wake up. Blink. Crash. Wake up. Squeeze someone’s hand. Crash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sticks my leggy out real far. 
> 
> i just couldn't keep myself away from you guys. and i like writing memories, as it happens. i think i mentioned it the first go-round, but this stuff is unbeta'd. i just write this and throw it into the void for judgement. to be honest i'd had this at least 3/4ths of the way written before i even entertained putting it on ao3, but then i felt validated, so i tried to finish it asap. hope you like what you read. 
> 
> also, i know robins are immune to fear and are made out the factory ready to patrol, but i thought it'd be more fun to write it like this. sue me.

“It’s alright, Robin.”

The updraft between the buildings made Jason’s hair fly up from his forehead, making him take an uneasy half-step back from the edge. The lights are dizzyingly bright on the street below; Jason knows it’s not the height itself that’s making him lose his edge, but rather being asked to take the jump.

“What if my grapple doesn’t stick?”

“It will.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

Batman takes a moment before answering, trying to calculate a proper response. “I’ll catch you.”

The first Robin never had a fear of falling. He was like the wind itself, launching from the tallest of heights when he was a younger age than Jason still. Acrobatic and athletic, like he was built to dive twenty stories and swing through the night. Dick Grayson had a big head start going into it all.

Jason? He wasn’t so sure.

It’s not that he didn’t want this. He did. From the moment Batman himself picked him up, took him under his wing – literally _and_ figuratively – he’d strived to be the best thing that ever happened to the Robin mantle. He’d been taken off the beaten path like his father and many others before him, of theft and deceit and a whole lot of other messy stuff found in the pits of Crime Alley. It was still a concept he was wrapping his head around every time he was sent home with soaring marks on papers or discovered a new favorite dish of Alfred’s. Life as a ward of Bruce Wayne was nothing but surreal – but life as the Robin to _Batman_ was proving to be a little more tricked out.

In his defense, whenever they’d practiced swinging, it had been in a controlled environment. And he knows it’s nothing more than a test run this evening. At least, he _thinks_ he knows.

Bruce settles a hand on Jason’s back. “If it is too much –”

Jason doesn’t give him time to finish.

He lunges over the edge, arm outstretched, and presses his finger over the trigger to his grapple. Falling, falling, _falling_ – his stomach plummets as the grapple finds purchase, and there’s a moment where nothing but wind whistles in his ear before he feels the catch in his shoulders. It’s easy to angle his body into the upswing; the boy has to stifle a holler as his uneasiness turns very quickly to _thrill_ at his flight over Gotham’s skyline. The past six months of his life all comes together in a matter of seconds.

Jason disengages his grapple just as he tucks and rolls onto the flat-top roof, momentum allowing him to keep sprinting across the wide expanse of it. There’s no hesitation this time as he leaps off once again, weaving his way deeper into Gotham’s network of dark back alleys and tall buildings.

When he finally slows to a stop, perched high up against one of the gargoyles littered amongst Gotham’s architecture, the boy quivers just a little, breathing harder than normal – whether it’s from the exertion or the freefalling or just plain _love_ of it, he can’t tell. He doesn’t really care, either.

“Not bad.”

Jason turns to look over his shoulder at Batman, calm and quiet and the closest thing to a smile Jason thinks he’s ever seen while Bruce dons the cowl. He grins in response, toothy and overexcited.

“I’m probably not acrobat material, Br-Batman,” He quickly corrects, chuckling, “But that was _fun._ ”

The not-smile slips. “It’s not _supposed_ to be fun, Robin.”

Jason stops smiling too. Oops. Yeah. Right. “Sorry, Batman.”

Bruce had said that a lot through their training. _It’s not supposed to be fun._ When Jason had scowled after being a little too bruised and battered from a sparring session, when he went to bed too exhausted to eat any of Alfred’s meals, when he had almost begged Bruce to let him go on patrol early – B-man had always told him the honest truth of it: it’s not a walk in the park. It never is. Never will be.

They’re putting criminals in their place and slowly taking care of the crime in Gotham. There’s never room for fun when the costume comes on.

Bruce snaps him out of his thoughts by putting a hand on his head and ruffling his hair, messing up the carefully-styled look Jason had tried to go for. Jason bats him away, scowling, and Bruce chuckles as he takes a seat next to him.

This was nice. Jason remembers a time when silence was deafening. When silence meant his neighbors one floor above had stopped hitting one another. When his mom stopped crying, or his dad fell asleep. It was a lonely world, bitter and hard, and silence roared like a lion in the late hours of the evening. Jason had memories of stirring up trouble in the early hours of the morning just for the sake of staying occupied.

Here, however, it’s comfortable. Batman and Robin use the silence like it’s a weapon in of itself – they are in control in the quiet. Jason feels at ease in the long stretch of no talking between himself and his mentor. It’s still an adjustment, sure, but Bruce’s silence is a whole lot different than anything he’s really been used to. There’s _power_ here. Peacefulness in the quiet.

At least, until Jason’s stomach growls.

He gets about three seconds into looking nonchalant before he has the decency to sheepishly look down at his feet, feeling Bruce’s gaze beneath the cowl. “….I forgot to eat dinner.”

It sounds so silly, saying it like that. As if Robin, Boy Wonder, dared to be hungry. They were ideas, tall tales of Gotham. And saying it _out loud_ makes it sound weird, even if they are nestled at the corner of one of the tallest buildings in Gotham.

To Jason’s surprise, Bruce _laughs._

It startles him. Batman laughing – well. The words themselves are an oxymoron.

“We can go grab something.” Bruce claps him on the shoulder, squeezing lightly before he releases him.

Jason realizes he’s not mad ( _‘course not, dummy  -- why_ would _he be mad?_ ) and smiles back at him. “Think anything’s open? ‘S pretty late.”

Bruce stands, and Jason all but scrambles up too. “I know a _few_ places.” The Bat looks down at his protégé. “Thinking... burgers.”

Jason snorts. “Alfred’ll be mad.”

They both take aim, nearly in sync, at a building far below. Even as they both leap off, grappling onwards, Jason can hear the smile in Bruce’s voice over the whistling wind.

“Then we won’t tell him.”

* * *

 

The first thing Jason comes to is the sound of a dull, monotonous beep.

It comes and goes, soft and quiet. Like clockwork – like a heartbeat. Background ambiance of something he’s not quite sure is really happening just yet. There’s a _lot_ he’s not sure of. His head hurts.

Limbs heavy. Tired. Not unlike how he felt after being shot for the first time.

_Was_ he shot? He couldn’t remember. He was too tired.

Everything felt like it was pressed into the mattress, like it weighed five thousand more pounds than it usually did. Jason didn’t have the strength to move it – his head was heavy, fogged and tired, just like his limbs. Maybe shot. Maybe something else.

“Jay?”

He feels the friction of calloused fingers wrapping around what he assumes is his own hand. He can’t do anything about it. Can’t even _breathe_ – alongside the methodic beep is a slow hum, an occasional hiss that makes his chest rise. Jesus. He was tired. He just wanted to sleep.

“Jason. Can you hear me?”

This was getting annoying.

Jason wills his eyes to open, tries hard to put forth the effort to lift his heavy eyelids, but all he manages is a crack barely visible through his eyelashes. It’s a dim room, dark and quiet, a mess of grey shapes. Comforting, in a way.

Whoever it was – sounded familiar, couldn’t place a name – let out a shaky breath. “Little Wing.”

He knows. He _knows._ But the name can’t come – too clouded is his mind – and his strength is rapidly dropping. Jason can’t hold his eyes open for long. He’s _tired._ His body beckons him to slip beneath the surface once again.

And so, he does.

* * *

 

It’s his routine for a while, though not by choice.

Wake up. Blink. Crash. Wake up. Squeeze someone’s hand. Crash.

The room doesn’t change in each of his visits to the land of the living – still dark, still beeping, still someone fretting over him. The person changes, he thinks. There are a lot of people who want his attention all at once whenever he’s there. It’s exhausting.  

When he falls back, receding into the quiet of unconsciousness, sometimes he dreams. Sometimes he remembers things, too. Nights on rooftops looking at skylines. Mornings spent at a breakfast table, with a butler serving him breakfast. Cold nights in a dingy apartment because the heat had been shut off. The flash of a building as a bomb goes off.

Usually those pull him back, unpleasant as they are. His body is still molded cement, barely responsive to the most determined commands, but when the most recent bout of giddy laughter haunts the recesses of his mind, he’s none too keen to let himself fall back asleep. There’s nothing comforting there left.

So he tries hard to blink through the drowsiness – he thinks he’s on something _strong,_ to be this deadened – and instinctively curls his fingers. Like a Pavlovian dog, someone stirs quickly next to him and squeezes back. The low voice sounds exhausted, gravelly from either over or underuse.

“I’m here, Jay.”

Jason’s mind suddenly applies a name to the sound. Dick. He tries to open his eyes a little wider, squinting as he gets a good look at his older brother.

Dick Grayson’s looking a little worse for wear. What was usually a polished guy, stand-up-cop type man had been replaced by someone disheveled, five o’ clock shadow brewing on the edges of his jaw. Didn’t look like he had been sleeping a whole lot, by the small bags under his eyes.

In a way, Jason felt smug. Dick was always the poster kid of Robins. Wore shoes that nobody could ever fill just as perfectly as he did – least of all Jason. Seeing him look anything like human and not the idea of a perfect son made him, for the time, more likeable.

Not that Jason would ever _admit_ it, of course.

“Don’t try to talk, alright?” Dick murmurs. “Leslie’s supposed to start weaning you off it in the next few days.”

Jason furrows his brow, but the way his chest rises automatically without him gives him the answer. He can feel the tubing in the back of his throat as he tries to swallow (which doesn’t really work in his favor _either,_ for the record).

Damn. Been a long time since it was _this_ serious.

It’s not like they all aren’t familiar with death’s doorstep. It probably has a fucking bat signal for them. Jason blinks in acknowledgement of Dick’s warning.

Well, at least the guy likes to hear himself talk. Dick runs a hand through his hair and sighs, sitting back in his chair – close enough within reach, at least, as he only loosens his grip on Jason’s hand when he realizes Jason’s not going to go right back under.

“That guy knew what he was getting himself into.” Dick sounds tired. “The one you’re after. Duncan Bates. Tim's keeping a close watch on anything that might be connected to him."

“GCPD almost beat us to you guys. Someone told them you guys were in the rubble – that whole block was just about destroyed. You shattered some ribs and shoulder in the fall. The pole went through…well. A lot.” He grimaces. “Thirteen hours in surgery, _a lot._ ”

Jason feels like there’s a lot more to be said to that list, but he’s not real sure he wants to hear it. Something’s not really adding up in his head – which isn’t saying much, considering Tim’s the detective of the family, and also probably not loaded to the nines with whatever painkillers Leslie’s tranquilizing him with. Dick doesn’t seem to notice the way Jason looks about the room, trying to take whatever he can from it.

“That first night was – _rough,_ Jay. I don’t think I’ve even seen Damian look so afraid.”

He stops abruptly when Jason squeezes his hand, stronger than he probably should have been able to, and when Dick looks at him, he blinks once. Closes them, tight, pausing. Opens them again. Closes them again. Blinks several more times.

It takes Dick a second, but they were both taught by Batman. He watches Jason’s message in Morse, jaw clenching harder and harder as he realizes what Jason’s asking.

_Where is Bruce?_

For a moment, Dick seems like he’s processing how to answer it, and Jason finds himself on edge. The oldest of the sons _loved_ to have all the right answers when nobody had anything else – he wasn’t supposed to be working out the best thing to say. He should just _know,_ like it’s an instinct. Even if it meant Bruce was mad at him, or avoiding him, or some stupid shit that only Bruce cared about like _moral code._ All any of _that_ meant is that they’d eventually go fight out.

But Dick didn’t answer right away. He lets all the air out of his chest, looks like he’s five years older than he really is, lets his shoulders sag.

“Bruce… he’s… well. They’re keeping him going.” Dick itches at the back of his neck. “Leslie found more internal bleeding, so he had another emergency surgery a week ago. He’s fighting, but. You know.”

Yeah. Jason does know. Bruce is _nothing_ if not one stubborn motherfucker. Still plugging on even when he should have died a thousand times over. Still talking when he should be unconscious. Still fighting when he should have _really_ stayed down, and in the end everyone suffers more for it.

_That’s_ what was wrong with this room.

Jason can’t recall a time when he woke up from something like this and Bruce hadn’t been there – if not beside him, within the shadows. He was always a _presence_ in some way even if he was not a _person,_ and Jason realized that’s what he had been searching for. The broad-shouldered asshole who regarded his venom with silence, or with stern words fit for a boy who still believed in him. Who hadn’t died once already to the Joker, Batman’s name like a plea on his lips just as the world lit up around him. Regardless of what he did, he had always been _there._

In a way, Jason surprises even himself with his reaction. He knows Dick certainly doesn’t expect it when he lurches forward up off the mattress, hands clawing to remove the mess of wires and tubes and whatever the fuck it was that was attempting to hold him down. Two things happen a split second later: the machines screech to life, cacophonous alarms ratting out his outburst, and Dick jumping up from his chair to grab hold of Jason’s wrists in iron grips.

“Jay, _stop_ ,” He orders firmly, trying to keep his voice level as Jason tries to struggle, fighting to overpower the sedatives. “Jay – _Jason,_ you need to stop –you’re gonna hurt yourself worse – ”

Jason makes an honest effort to headbutt him, but he’s way too slow and Dick is way faster than he is; he dodges it with ease and pushes him back down. “ _Leslie!_ ”

Dimly beneath the wail of his monitors, Jason hears the sound of a door bursting open. He’s sure it’s Leslie, by the voice of an old woman saying something, but he’s too busy being pissed that Dick’s stopping him and staring up at that fucking pretty-boy face with a look he _hopes_ could kill or at least maim permanently. He struggles, determined, but he feels an icy sensation flood the veins in his right arm.

It hits him in seconds at it blooms to his chest, though not as fast as he knows it should. Leslie’s off to the side, hitting buttons and looking unperturbed, and Dick’s loosening his grip on his wrists. Jason grits his teeth around the tube and thinks of all the ways he’d like to take a nasty swing at his elder brother, but it doesn’t come to fruition.

He blinks. Blinks again. He only spells out the _F_ and _U_ before his eyes roll back and it all recedes back into darkness.

 

* * *

 

“You almost _killed_ him, Robin.” Bruce’s voice is angry and stern, accompanied by the flutter of his cape as he rounds on Jason. His form is looming, dark against the light of the cave, and suddenly Jason finds himself deeply unsettled at how small he feels.

It doesn’t keep him from fighting back. He can be just as stubborn – he didn’t even have to _learn_ it from the Bat. “Yeah, and let him kill _you?_ ”

“We _needed_ answers. I knew he was taking the swing.” Batman retorted, sounding more frustrated. “I have fought the same exact _fight_ for years. I wasn’t in danger.”

Jason’s not sure what makes him madder – the feeling of invalidation or _knowing_ that Bruce is wrong.

He’s got a lot more experience than Jason does. Sure. ‘Course he does. Of course he’s done this song and dance a few times. But he _knows_ Bruce wasn’t expecting the attack from the side.

It didn’t stop him from tackling the goon over a table and slamming the back of his head into the floor so hard it came away bloody, his hands wrapped around the guy’s throat. The assailant had even dropped the nail-ridden baseball bat the moment Robin had jumped on him.

“Robin!” Batman had yelled, delivering a harsh kick to another criminals stomach that sent him almost flying across the room. In a fraction of a second Bruce had grabbed Jason and hauled him off the guy, fisting the base of his cape as if he were a cub being picked up by the scruff of his neck.

Tonight wasn’t their best night.

Then again, last week wasn’t so great either.

If Jason’s starting to realize the pattern, he _knows_ Bruce has picked up on it already, too.

“You were _hurt,_ ” Jason seethed, jabbing an accusatory finger at Bruce’s side. He’d _seen_ at least one of them get a good hit in – the suit hadn’t been harmed, but he knows his mentor is favoring that side. “You _are_ hurt. I was _looking out_ for you. He was going to get at least _one_ hit, and you were dealing with someone else.”

“You could have done it _without_ cracking his skull, Robin!”

“He had _nails_ in that thing!”

“It doesn’t m –” Bruce cuts himself off, grimacing, and reaches to yank the hood back from his face. His voice is stern but revised without the edge of anger. “That’s not the _point_ I’m making here, Jason.”

“We do what we _have_ to. We don’t _brutalize_ people. We don’t _kill._ ”

Jason feels his fists clench so hard he can feel the ache in his palm even through his gloves. “So what was the plan, then, huh? You think they were gonna go easy on you? You think they weren’t gonna _brutalize us_ if we gave them the chance?”

“That’s not –”

“You think he was gonna go ‘ _oh wait, no, what would_ Batman _do?_ ’” Jason feels his frustration multiply, broiling over the side of the pot. “Because he wouldn’t! Nobody does! They wouldn’t take those kinds of jobs if they weren’t willing to beat the _shit_ out of a guy in a bat costume!”

Alfred must have descended the stairs at some point, as is his post-patrol routine, because there’s a disapproving clearing of the throat somewhere off to his left. It doesn’t phase him.

“I’m here to _watch your back,_ Bruce – we’re supposed to be partners!”

“Jason, _stop._ ” Bruce is trying his hardest, now, to de-escalate the situation, but when he places his hand on Jason’s shoulder the boy reels backwards as if he’d been scorched by hot iron.

“No!” Jason cries, reaching a hand up and ripping off his domino mask. It flutters to the floor. “You wanna know what _I_ learned? Nobody cares about _feelings,_ or _morality,_ or _family_ or anything else out there. I wasn’t _raised_ here, in a cozy mansion, where I could have some kind of _high ground._ ”

Bruce’s face sets into grim lines as he realizes what kind of nerve he struck. Jason keeps going.

“I know exactly what these guys do. I know how to _survive_ them. If you don’t beat them down you’re _asking_ to be left half-dead next to a dumpster. You’re _asking_ for something horrible to happen. I did what I had to do. I did all that to protect _you._ ”

He knows he’s not talking just about Batman and Robin anymore, and maybe he’s saying more than he should (no, it’s not maybe, it’s _really_ more than he should, Bruce doesn’t deserve to know anything more than he has to), but he can’t stop the way it spills out of him, his hands shaking and voice raw from both yelling and patrol. Those memories, albeit aged by a few years, still hurt.

Jason remembers the stench of the alley, the mix of ammonia and garbage and overall underbelly of Gotham. He remembers limping home to his barely conscious mother, who hadn’t even noticed his absence. He remembers laying down on the floor, because the mildewed mattress is occupied, and listening to the rattling sound of his breath as he nurses his wounds. He remembers being eight and wondering what kind of guy would beat up a kid for money he didn’t have to begin with.

When the last of the echoes recede, bouncing off the walls, nobody talks. The silence is almost as deafening as the argument.

Jason feels his pulse racing, feelings of indignance and hurt and maybe a bit of shame welling up all at once to overwhelm him. He’s got to leave. _Now._

“No patrol routes next week. Got it,” He says, almost a mutter, head lowering as he flees up the stairs.

* * *

 

Later, when the manor is quiet and dark, Jason stares at the high ceiling of his room. It’s barely visible in the dim of the room, the drawn curtains blocking out the moonlight, but he stares up and thinks and revels in how he really shouldn’t be here. He was a punk kid from Crime Alley – he didn’t belong in a place like this, a place where money flowed basically from a tap and a butler came at his beck and call.

(Speaking of, he kinda feels guilty. Alfred had the decency to make him dinner and he didn’t touch a bite of it.)

Maybe he never really would make a good Robin. Not for the first time, Jason wondered what it had been about him that day that made Bruce _really_ take a good look at him and think “this is the best choice.” Six months of grueling training proved Jay had the _physical_ skill, could work through a crime scene like he was the criminal himself, could do anything and everything related to solving mysteries and fighting for justice. But the emotional side…well. Jason figures it wouldn’t be long before Bruce really decided it just wasn’t working out.

So what next, then? Jason rolls to his side on his big – _too_ big – mattress, trying to work through the situation in his head. Should he wait for Bruce to call it? Or should he take that into his own hands? It’s not like he could just up and leave; he didn’t really have anywhere to go. Back to Crime Alley just meant Bruce would find him all over again. A year ago Jason wouldn’t have thought twice about just stealing a ton of money and getting the hell out of Dodge – but that was then, and this was now, and even if this didn’t pan out for either of them, he figures maybe stealing a bunch of money from the _Batman_ and taking the next flight in wouldn’t work out so well either.

He’s so busy working out all his hypothetical contingency plans that he almost doesn’t hear the pad of footsteps down the hall drawing nearer. When the doorknob to his bedroom turns and clicks open, a thin stream of lamplight gliding across his back, Jason uses every ounce of strength he has to keep from startling and instead closes his eyes.

“Jason?”

Bruce’s voice is hushed, gentle. Not at all like the man who had admonished his partner earlier in the evening. Jason doesn’t respond, choosing the “pretending to be asleep” route. Bruce doesn’t try to rouse him any further.

Instead, Jason feels the depression in the bed as Bruce takes a seat on the edge of it.

There’s a stretch of silence, then; whether it was to determine if he was _really_ asleep or something else, he didn’t know. Then, carefully as so not to wake him, Bruce’s fingers card across Jason’s temple and tuck an unruly lock of hair behind Jason’s ear.

The feeling is unexpected – Jason was not a stranger to the rare displays of kindness Bruce did. Sometimes he smiled, laughed, played up a story as he wrote a big check. Sometimes he seemed genuinely interested in hearing about Jason’s progress in school, how he was doing that day, how he would feel to interrupt their rigid routines to go do something fun.

This was truly _gentle,_ though. Away from cameras or people or anything related to their work down below. Nothing he did in this moment was something to keep up an image or to ensure Jason was fit to be Robin. Not a test. Not anything he had to do. It was just…

Fatherly.

“I’m sorry.”

Bruce is quieter than he was when he stepped in. His hand is still gently touching the down of Jason’s hair, trying to smooth it. Jason breathes in and keeps his eyes closed. Five million thoughts pulled at him at once. They sit like that for a minute, warm but faint light spilling into the room against the dark

“It would be wise to let Master Jason rest.”

Alfred must have come to the door. Bruce’s hand stills and pulls away.

“It would be wise for _you_ to get some rest as well, Master Bruce.” The subtle hint of disapproval reigns supreme – Alfred has mastered the ways of politely taking _zero_ shit. “You have an early morning tomorrow.”

“I think I’ll reschedule my meeting to the afternoon. It can wait.” The wooden bedframe makes a small noise of protest as the man stands, doing his best not to disturb Jason’s sleeping form. “Maybe we can all sit and have breakfast together.”

Alfred makes a noise of agreement.

“I think that would be a lovely idea, sir. But _after_ you get some rest.”

Jason thinks he hears Bruce chuckle – but it’s further away. He doesn’t dare open his eyes.

“Alright. Good night, Alfred.”

“Good night, Master Bruce.”

The creak of the door drawing to a close stops just short. Jason doesn’t even have to see to know Alfred knows good and well that he’s awake. A smirk pulls involuntarily at the corner of Jason’s mouth, but he doesn’t give up the ghost just yet.

Alfred’s voice carries the same soft, comfortable sternness as it always does.

“And good night to _you,_ Master Jason.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr is havenesc.
> 
> promise jason will be conscious next chapter. PROMISE. but also finals are coming and while i looooove to make horrible decisions in my life i guess those are a little important. so consider this my feast before the famine, but i think we all know i'll try to get it done in like a week or two. and probably have several more chapters written by that point. but i hope you guys enjoyed.


	3. taking time in a simple place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes about three seconds for Jason to let the book – something Bruce recommended to him, no less -- tilt back into his lap. Two more for his head to twist to look at Alfred, chewing on his lower lip.  
> “Actually – I, uh. I think there’s been some sort of mistake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> full disclosure? this chapter sucked to write. i'm fried from finals and half of this was written intermittently between classes or just before work or something or other and you know i don't go back over any of this. there will not be bruce in this chapter, but i wanted to kind of get it set up properly. this is my "playing the long game" fic. rome (see: fixed family) won't be built in a day. 
> 
> also, idk if i need to disclose this, but there's not going to be really any shipping in this. the brotherly relationships jason has with his siblings is really important and not really explored enough in canon. so everything's coming up family daisies. enjoy.

Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be one of the good guys. One day you’re standing over a couple of no-name fools (or even ones _with_ names, those are the _best_ of days) with your hands on your hips, all teeth with your shit-eating grin and the hand of a proud mentor on your shoulder. The next, you’re either laid out by the swing of a crowbar in a dusty warehouse or you’re going toe-to-toe with one of the main members of Justice League because Kori’andr decided she didn’t like the look on his face.

On special days – _especially_ if you’re Jason Todd, because nothing truly good ever came from the Todd family line, he’s finding out – you’re impaled on building rubble trying to do something _good_ for Gotham City after already dying once, and probably get the Batman himself killed in the process.

Still beats dying again, sure, but it sucks _zero_ less.

Jason feels himself edge closer back to the land of the living every day. Whatever Leslie’s keeping him on is strong – _way_ stronger – and he can never quite breach into consciousness, which is frustrating and relieving all at once. Frustrating, because he wants answers and can’t do anything about it. Relieving, because he doesn’t know if he _wants_ those answers and doesn’t have to concurrently _worry_ about it. Last time didn’t go so well; he’s sure nobody’s keen to have a knockdown dragout with a half-dead born-again estranged sibling.

He always remembers that the last thing to go is hearing – so it makes sense, then, really, that hearing’s the first thing to come back to.

And _god_ he wishes it wasn’t.

Bickering. Lots of it. Jason can tell even before he can begin to make out words or sentences that someone is being a nuisance, and whoever else in the room is countering it with as much vigor. The fog is thick and he can’t move – not even sure he _wants_ to, considering that Leslie might put him back under – but the longer he sits, the more clarity slowly ebbs over his mind, gentle waves like the coming of high tide. (The volume, he thinks, _definitely_ has something to do with it.)

“ – Into a _meeting_ –”

“I’m Father’s heir, I _deserve_ to be there.”

“You had _school!_ ”

“There is nothing there that I have not already learned a _thousand_ times, Drake. I was r—”

“ _Raised by the League of Assassins,_ we get it, Damian. Pick another line.”

A growl. Maybe two. Was there a _dog?_

“ _Guys._ ” The third voice – Dick – sounds like he’s really just about had it. “If you’re going to fight, do it outside of the clinic. Or Leslie’s going to throw _all_ of us out.”

“I didn’t start it.” Damian sniffed.

A sound of indignation from Tim. “You liar.”

“I don’t _care_ who started it. Knock it off. And _Damian,_ don’t let Titus climb up on the bed.”

Jesus Christ, this was a whole party. Jason thinks he’s got a new record for fastest oncoming headache, and it’s been less than a minute. The Boy Wonder, the Replacement, and the Demon Brat all corralled in _his_ room. It sounds like a bad start to an even worse joke. This is his own personal hell.

Vaguely he’s made aware of the pressing weight on his legs. It’s comforting until it isn’t, _really_ isn’t, because moments after the weight shifts and on instinct he’s sucking in a huge breath and wincing at the pain that fires up his left shin like it’s the worst splint he’s had in his life.

“Damian!”

“Come, Titus.”

The weight lifts – oh, good, the dog was attempting to smother him – and he can feel the depression in the mattress as the Great Dane takes his leave back onto the floor where he belongs. Nobody says anything for a second, everyone (including Jason himself) stunned at the activity.

Well, at least he’s breathing on his own again. That’s nice.

“You’re alive.”

Damian, poetic as ever, speaks first. Jason furrows his brow, but he can’t help the way the corner of his mouth tugs upward. Smug little shit.

His voice is raw, speech slurred slightly with sleep. His throat hurts. “Sorry for your loss.”

The tension in the room seems to decompress a bit with the exchange of snark. Dick lets out a long breath as Jason’s eyes creep open, squinting through the abnormal amount of light in the room that wasn’t there his last trip to the land of the living. Someone opened the heavy curtains. Someone should really _close_ the heavy curtains.

“Jason?” Dick hovers, looking equal parts relieved and apprehensive. That’s fair. “Hey. How you doing?”

Now that’s almost laughable. How _was_ he doing? Last time he had been awake Jason hadn’t really taken stock of all his injuries. Funny how you just kind of get used to having the shit beaten out of you. Same shit, different day.

Without moving his head Jason can see the red of a cast on his left wrist, EKG wires on his chest, a bright white patch of gauze and dressing just beneath his ribs – which still look a little swollen, the remnants of what must have been _fantastic_ bruising coloring his skin like an ugly galaxy of yellows and purples. A drain tube peeks out from beneath the dressing on his chest, disappearing over the side of his sick bed. He guesses that he might have a cast on the left leg, too, based on the way it takes shape beneath the covers and how bad it had hurt to have Tidus lounge across him like he owned the place.

Yep. Looks about like his luck.

“Bony ass dog elbows aside?”

Jason tries to clear his throat, to no avail. It sounds like it’s been put through a rock grinder.

“….I’m here.”

 _Here_ was feeling like a mac truck just mowed him down, but it was better than a lot of alternatives, he supposes. At least he was finally up and talking a little – it was tiring, but Jason figured it was more to do with the meds he was on than the actual effort. “Am I _supposed_ to be here?”

Dick’s brow furrows in concern before the question’s meaning seems to click.

“Oh. _Oh,”_ He nods. “Yeah, Leslie did this intentionally.”

“Why _else_ do you think we’d be here, Todd?” Damian sniffs, unamused. Jason puts a note in the back of his mind to cuff the kid up the side of the head once he can manage the effort. “Twiddling our thumbs _hoping_ you’d be up?”

“She told us you could probably go to the manor to finish healing if you stay stable,” Tim offers, ignoring Damian’s quip.

Jason frowns. The Manor was just about the last place where he really wanted to nurse his wounds. Being on a mission with the family had gone rickety, at best, and that was _really_ saying the best. They had set instructions and mission details to focus on. There wasn’t really good reason to talk about much else. At the Manor, it was the polar opposite. There was hardly structure to their lives, more chaos out of costume than you’d really expect out of a bunch of bats. Lots of ghosts roamed those halls.

Jason had only planned on this _one bust_ being his fill of contact with the family for six months to a year – and this, right here, was already a bit much.

“Nah, I’ve got places.” Is all he says.

Dick sits back in his chair, elbow leaning on an arm, and shakes his head. 

“Nope. No can do, Little Wing. Leslie’s not going to issue a discharge unless you go there.”

Jason feels his hackles go up at that. “She can’t do that.”

“She knows your injuries are going to be taken care of there.” Dick replies, stupidly calm. Whatever bullshit method of not starting a fight he’s trying to do, it’s not working. “She can’t send you off to god-knows-where and hope for the best. This place is a revolving door already as it is.”

“I’m _not_ going to the Manor.”

“Fine, Todd.” Damian interjects, lip curling and arms crossed tight over his chest. “Then stay here, if you’re going to be a child about it.”

“Damian,” Dick says in unison with Jason’s, “Shut _up_ , Demon Brat.”

Unfortunately, the venom with which Jason used instigated a coughing fit, and he yelped as his muscles contracted around his wounds. Dick stands and reaches quickly for a pillow behind Jay to hand him, helping him press it to his stomach to alleviate the pain. When it finally subsides, Jason sits back, eyes shut tight and teeth gritted.

“Alright, before this gets any _worse,_ ” Tim pipes up, looking just about at the end of his rope, “Titus isn’t even supposed to be _in_ here. Damian, let’s take a walk.”

Damian _tt’_ d as Tim started for the door, hand hovering over Damian’s shoulders as he took him and the dog out of the room. There was some minor bickering just outside the door – Tim must have accidentally touched him – but it slowly decreased in volume as they moved further away. Silence enveloped the room for a beat.

“I’m not going,” Jason finally says stubbornly, eyes still closed. His wounds felt like they were on fire.

 “You _can_ stay here, if you really want. It’s just going to take a little more effort on everyone’s part.”

Jason’s frown deepened and he cracked an eye open to look at Dick. “What the hell does that have to do with any of you guys?”

Dick’s brow arched up high, looking as though he was stunned that the answer wasn’t obvious.

“ _Someone_ has to be here to watch over you.”

“That --- _why?_ ”

“Uh, because we all _know_ you, Jason. You’d be gone in half a second.”

….Alright. Fair. Jason’s mouth twists as he realizes his brothers knew him too well to play an innocent card (as if he ever had one to play to begin with). Truth is he _would_ take off the moment he thought he had an opportunity. And he guesses he owes Leslie big time – disappearing against her wishes is more of a big _fuck you_ than a _thank you._ And while Jason would love nothing more than to drop off the radar for a few months and maybe kick up some work when Roy got back in town, he knows better than to think Dick would leave him alone. The eldest always had a knack for finding him when he absolutely did not want to be found.

Dick’s expression softened. “Listen, Little Wing. I’ll do what I can for you. Set you up on the completely opposite side, let you work on your own stuff – I won’t even _ask_ if it’s good or bad – make sure you can heal up in peace.”

“This isn’t – _that_ bad.” Jason visibly makes an effort to relax, the ache in his chest dull as he breathes. “I’ve taken care of myself in worse situations.”

Dick’s gaze hardens a bit at the deflection.

“Jason. Your heart stopped _three times_ that night.”

Oof. So this is where they’re headed. Jason opens both eyes to watch Dick, already irritated by the feel of guilt crawling up his spine.

“It took us forever to find you two, and when we did there was barely anything _left_. Tim had to saw down the rebar and keep it so you wouldn’t finish bleeding out – Leslie barely got your heart started again the _first_ time. And then you tried to die _again_ during surgery, and _again_ when you got out of it. You scared the shit out of all of us.”

Jason just watches. It’s obvious Dick had been holding onto all of this, assuming charge for the sake of his siblings and the rest of the family.

“Hole through your lung. Through your ribs – _thirteen_ are cracked, by the way, which is impressive, considering there’s only twenty four – and your stomach. Cracked your collarbone. Shattered your ankle. Achilles tendon is shot.  Deep bruising nine ways from Sunday. Almost thought you lost an eye, too, which obviously you didn’t, but we thought you did.

Bruce got pumped full of _slug_ at close range, which was fun to work on pulling it all out, and a tiny piece was missed so he went septic like a week later, and his leg was snapped, and dislocated his shoulder just after it healed, and – you both came _really, really_ close to dying.”

Bruce was coming off an injury? Jason’s brow furrowed. “He didn’t tell me about his shoulder.”

Dick stares at him for what seems like an eternity, and for a second he can see the exact thought of _“I’m going to murder him once and for all”_ flicker behind those bright blue eyes. “That’s not the point I’m making.”

“I know.”

“You both almost died. In the same night.”

“I know.”

Dick let out an exasperated groan and let himself fall back in his chair, head falling back over the top of it. “ _Jason._ ”

Yeah, maybe he _should_ feel more shameful about it. Dick tries his best to keep the family going, even if nobody’s talking to one another. Jason knows he’s trying to make the situation more bearable. It’s only respect that pulls a half-hearted “ _Sorry_ ” out of Jason, and then it’s quiet in the room again.

It’s not comforting.

“How is the old man?” Jason finally asks.

He’s quiet, as if he’s afraid of the other two hearing him. As if he speaks too loud everyone will know he actually does give a shit about Bruce Wayne. Dick is probably the only one he can admit it to.

Dick cards a hand through his hair, sighing.

“He’s stable. Not up yet – Leslie’s orders – but he’s healing. He doesn’t really bounce back like he used to. He’s just down the hall.”

Jason ghosts over that. “What does the press know?”

“He was attacked. It’s convenient that he just did a merger operation a few months before the whole Bates thing that pissed a few people off.”

“And Batman?”

Dick tilts his head up off the back of the chair and Jason swears the bags under his eyes just got five times heavier.

“Still out on the streets. But luckily, nobody’s getting any big ideas right now. Batwoman is picking up a lot of the work.”

Leave it to Dickiebird to step up to the plate. Always the prodigal son, always doing way too much to cover Bruce’s ass. Jason heaved a sigh, wincing slightly as his chest ached.

“None of that’s important right now, though.” Dick says, quiet. “What _is_ important is that you actually let yourself heal. And I know you’re not absolutely _loving_ your options right now, Jay, but you know Bruce isn’t going to leave you alone here. He’s gonna be more likely to give you some extra space at the manor.”

“There’s gonna be a fight,” Jason says warily. There always is. Maybe not now, maybe not when they’re both home at first, but it’s never an _if._ It’s always a _when._

Dick doesn’t seem swayed. “There’s always a fight, Little Wing. It’s whoever draws the short straw that week. That’s how our family works.”

Jason scowls. “It’s not the same. And you know it.”

Bruce and Dick have a fight, they sulk and trade snide comments and maybe Dick runs back to Blüdhaven for a bit. Tim holes up in the study and works on a new algorithm. Damian locks himself in his room just to pout and resurfaces five hours later. Bruce and Jason fight -- Jason’s being dragged half-conscious by the rim of his kicked-in helmet and violently disowned.

It’s been fixed – the way someone places a Hello Kitty band-aid over a half-severed neck – for now, and he’s not looking to rip off that little bit of peace they might have achieved by being in close proximity to one another. Bruce at least had done him a solid with Bates, even if they were both worse off for it.

Jason’s whole existence seemed to have a flair of the dramatic whether he really wanted it to or not. He was _really_ over it. He doesn’t forgive and forget – and if the verbal blows they’ve traded with one another indicate _anything_ about their relationship, neither does Bruce.

Really. He’d already had enough.

“Contrary to popular belief, I just want to get the _hell_ out of Dodge and lay low for a while.” He meets Dick’s gaze, uncomfortable. “The Manor isn’t to me what it is to you guys.”

Dick sits, head leaning on his hand, quiet as Jason says his piece. For a second he looks conflicted – as if he’s not sure what side to take (and really, Grayson, stop trying to _fix_ everything) – but then he’s back to his normal, smooth expression. After the silence allows the dust to settle a bit, he leans forward.

“Listen – just. Come to the Manor. It’ll be at least two weeks before Bruce can even think of getting out of here. If it doesn’t work out,” He holds a hand up to stop Jason from speaking, a _hear me out_ gesture, “— _If_ it doesn’t work out, I’ll put you in a place Bruce doesn’t know about myself and pay Leslie extra to run by and check on you. I can even get you set up in Blüd. At least until she gives the all-clear on your injuries, I don’t give a shit what Bruce says.”

Jason doesn’t know what sentence in particular that makes him huff – the fact that even beloved Dickie has safe spots to get away from Bruce, or that he supposedly doesn’t care about Bruce’s opinion. His conviction in his own words is cute though.

It’s enough to make Jason kind of believe him.

“…Just until I’m back on my feet.”

“Just until you’re back on your feet,” Dick confirms.

Jason scowls and thinks. This could either be a good setup for a while, or a really, _really_ bad one. But truth be told? He misses Alfred. Misses Alf’s cooking, too.

He would never, ever, _ever_ admit it – but yeah, alright, maybe he wouldn’t mind spending some time with the other members of the family, either. (Not that he would ever be part of it again, provided he ever _had_ been – but he did love his brothers.)

“….Yeah. Okay.” Jason admits defeat. “…I’ll hold you to your promise. But I’ll go to the Manor.”

Dick’s mouth blooms into a grin that’s almost _too_ full of relief.

“Alfred will be happy to see you.”

 _Yeah,_ Jason thinks, _If only everyone was an Alfred._

* * *

 

Jason really thinks he might have gotten himself in over his head.

The halls are too big. The rooms are too big. The kitchen is grand and large, and the butler – Alfred, Mr. Wayne had said his name was – is doting and delivers three meals a day. The walls are decorated to the nines with lavish paintings, renaissance in nature and reeking of something Jason can’t quite pin as anything other than wealth.

Just a few weeks ago he was waking up on a bed of cardboard and honing his craft at snatching something from the hotdog stand without getting whopped upside the head by the vendor. Now he was waking up on goose down pillows and eating things like – he doesn’t know, like _meatloaf_ or _steak_ or some other delicacy that Alfred’s pronunciation was lost on him.

It was a total culture shock, Batman’s secret identity notwithstanding.

When Batman peeled the cowl back, expecting maybe some sort of recognition, Jason had none to give. He knew the _name_ Wayne, had seen The Wayne Foundation’s name here and there on renovated buildings close to Crime Alley, but never really put a face to a name. It’s not like Jason’s top priorities included reading gossip magazines about millionaires.

It made sense, really. Batman’s gadgets and cars with expensive-ass wheels needed to come from _somewhere._ But _seeing_ Bruce sit at the table, coffee in one hand and paper in the other on a sunny Sunday morning, and _knowing_ this is the same guy he tried to lift tires off of and beat Ma Gunn and her crowd of unruly jewel thieves, was a _wild_ feeling. It had been a few days ago and some part of him was still reeling, feeling that vivid sense of crisis that could not be explained at all. His bowl of cereal had gone soggy.

“Is everything alright, Master Jason?”

Jay jumps from his spot in the study, pulled out of his thoughts by Alfred’s inquiry. The man was dusting a decorative vase on a decorative side table, pausing to look at the new ward. Jason’s gaze flitted between Alfred and the book in his hands; he had been on the same page he’d started at.

“Uh.” Jason flips the page. “Yes, Mr. Pennyworth. Thanks.”

The butler returns to dusting.

It takes about three seconds for Jason to let the book – something Bruce recommended to him, no less --  tilt back into his lap. Two more for his head to twist to look at Alfred, chewing on his lower lip.

“Actually – I, uh. I think there’s been some sort of mistake.”

Alfred looks at Jason from his peripheral, brow arching in a nonplussed manner as he moves from the vase to the desk.

“And pray what, my dear boy, would make you believe such a thing?”

Jason’s mouth opens, and closes, and opens again. No sound. How the _hell_ is he gonna explain it?

“I don’t know?”

His voice lilts upwards at the end, as if he himself doesn’t know how to come to terms with his own statement (which is accurate, because he _doesn’t_ ). Jason slinks down into the corner of the lavish couch, slouching. Vaguely he can feel his heart beating a little faster than usual. “I just – you know where I’m from, right, Mr. Pennyworth?”

“Just Alfred will do, Master Jason,” The butler corrects. “I believe your former residence was Park Row, was it not?”

“Yeah. Crime Alley.”

If that was supposed to get a reaction, it didn’t. Jason still hears the gentle sound of the duster moving across the wooden surface.

“I mean – I don’t get it. He could pick anybody he wanted. He could even ask the _old_ Robin to come back. But I hit Batman with a _tire iron_ after trying to steal his _wheels_ , and he takes me _in._ ”

“I feel like that is a slightly oversimplified progression of events, sir,” Alfred says from his place at the desk, level as ever. “But yes, he did choose you.”

“That’s what I don’t get!” Jason places the book aside and scrambles to his knees atop the couch, nearly hanging over the back of it as he looks at Alfred. “He just – decided like that! He just saw me and said ‘Yeah, okay, that’s Robin.’ What if –”

He stops. Then, quieter: “What if the Batman decides I’m not cut out for it?”

What would happen then? It’s not like Jason had exactly grown accustomed to this. Maybe the best weeks of his life, ever, sure, but it wasn’t _his_ life. He wasn’t made for this kind of luxury. It threatened to overwhelm him at every turn, threatened to swallow him whole. He could go back to the life in Crime Alley, maybe try to keep kids from ending up like Ma Gunn’s boys, if Bruce had any second thoughts. Not that Jason would ever blame him – the decision was fast, and the man already _had_ a Robin. Jason was just a street kid who stole shit and hurt people who hurt him.

Not a whole lot of role model material to work with there.

“Is _that_ why you have refused to unpack, Master Jason?”

Alfred’s stopped dusting, now.

Bruce had given him a wardrobe – a good portion of them hand-me-downs from the elder Robin, but some new things as well. But Jason had refused to unpack anything, declined Alfred’s offer take his ratty little suitcase upstairs, and kept it holed up beneath his bed.

Jason picks at the sleeve of his sweater nervously.

“I mean, yeah, I guess so. Just in case.”

Alfred’s mouth pressed into a thin line and, after setting the duster down, rounded the couch to address Jason properly. The kid was kind of figuring out that Alfred was a rock in the storm – unmoving, but in a comforting way. Reliable.

“I do hope that you don’t believe your stay here is contingent upon being _Robin,_ sir.”

“Isn’t it? It’s not like he takes in _every_ street kid.”

“He does his best to provide opportunities for them when he doesn’t. And he sees something, particularly in _you,_ Master Jason, that he finds inspiring enough to be Robin.”

Jason blinked. “I’m the only one here, right? What happened to the other Robin?”

“Master Dick has moved on to pursue other opportunities, and in time those same opportunities will come to you as well. However, this manor is his to call home, regardless of what mask he takes. As is it yours now.”

Home.

That hits a little different. Jason fights to keep the bewilderment off his face. Home was something he never had a great experience with. Hiding under the table to avoid the spray of glass when his father inevitably threw something. Making sure his mother slept on her side so she wouldn’t asphyxiate on her own vomit. Coming in late at night to nurse his own or his father’s wounds after one too many drinks in bad company.

And here – Bruce Wayne had just taken him in, gave him a bed and food and access to a _whole_ lot of books. Even said something about starting school (in a _real_ school, too).

“Even if you do not fancy yourself a Robin – which, my boy, if Master _Bruce’s_ retelling of the story is to be believed, you are more than capable – it is still with good intentions that you are here. You are always welcome.”

When Jason doesn’t say anything back, rooted in the silence of his own thoughts, Alfred straightens his back and resumes his task at hand.

They boy looks around him at the couch, the pillows, the coffee table. The shelves, books, desk, the rug – he sits and soaks it in, _really_ soaks it, like as if fate is dangling good luck like a string in front of him and if he grabs it too fast, he’ll wake up.

Home.

“….Thanks, Alfred,” Jason says, sinking back into the cushions. _Home._

He picks up the book he had set aside and begins to read.

* * *

 

Jason frowns at the sight of snow gathering at Leslie’s steps, the sight of bright white nearly blinding him. It was about six inches deep, the higher trafficked areas already muddied with people’s passing, but a fresh coat was beginning to dust down over it. Dick was leaving the driver’s side, coming around the hood to help his brother in the car, and Leslie stood with her hand resting on Jason’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

Jason’s mouth twists in further disapproval. “What the _hell_ is this?”

Leslie arches a brow as her breath fogs white in the cold air. “Do we need to take you back in to get a scan?”

Dick clears the steps two in one, kicking down the lock on the wheelchair’s brakes. “I think that would be a lovely idea. We could find out a _lot._ ”

“Thank you, smartass, but _no._ ”

Jason automatically lifts his right arm for Dick to wrap around him, pulling him up and offering support as Jason borderline bunny-hops to the backseat. It’s a complicated process; his muscles are weak, and each movement jostles his ribs in an unpleasant way, but Dick lets him go at his own pace and only offers words of agreement when Jason spits out a colorful word or lament.

It’s already taken the wind out of his sails when he finally settles in the backseat, mindful of the cast on his leg. Tim swivels around in the passenger seat to look at Jason, smugly waving.

“Hey champ.”

“Fuck _off,_ Timbo.”

Dick opens his door and slides into the driver seat, slamming the door shut behind him. Leslie ducks her head in through the passenger side.

“I already gave Alfred the rundown of what needs to be done. _You,_ ” She says accusatorily, pointing a finger at Jason, “Don’t do anything stupid. And _you_ two, don’t _enable_ him.”

“Yes ma’am,” Dick and Tim answer nearly in unison, with Jason grumbling something that sounded like a general agreement. It was enough to satisfy her, at least; with a pat on the windowsill, Leslie retracted her head. “Drive safe.”

Dick rolled the window up with a nod. Jason stared out of the window, still bewildered.

“Back there – I meant, _when did it start snowing?_ ”

Dick waits to answer until they roll to a stoplight, intersection buzzing. He leans in to the rear mirror to both dust off the coating of snow that had accumulated and meet Jason’s gaze. “Yesterday was the first snowfall. It’s fixing to be November.”

Jason blanches. “It’s _November?_ ”

“Fixing to be,” Tim corrects. “It’s the twenty-ninth of October.”

The mental math is quick. He tried to take out Bates back in beginning of August. _Three months,_ really? Damn.

“Call Alfred,” Dick ordered, and the car’s computer chirped in response. Jason tried to ignore the way the rings made his head ache, but by ring three Alfred had picked up.

“Yes, Master Dick?”

“We’re _en route_ with the cargo, Alf. Be there in about fifteen.”

“And how is Master Jason?”

Jason saw Dick’s gaze flicker up and back to the road. “Why don’t you tell him yourself, Jay?”

“Hey, Alfred,” Jason replied, raising his voice to be heard from the backseat. “I’m here.”

He knows Alfred’s frowning on the other end of the line. “ _Here is not an indication of wellness,”_ He would always gripe, often times prodding them for a more proper answer than the one Jason initially gave him.

Maybe it was the fatigue in his voice already, or just that maybe Alfred thought rocking the boat too early would be a bad idea. Either way, Alfred let it slide.

“I _see._ Well, your room is ready for you. Miss Thompkins already dropped off everything you need yesterday.”

“Great,” Jason replies sarcastically, wincing as the road jostled the car. “Can’t wait.”

“You alright?” Tim asks, looking over his shoulder. Jason waves at him, eyes shut.

“Peachy.”

“You boys be careful on those roads, please,” Alfred says. “I’ll see you soon.”

 

* * *

 

They would _not_ see him soon.

 

Alright, so maybe he was being dramatic.

Maybe not _soon enough._ The car ride was only about twenty minutes, Gotham’s maddening traffic be damned, but Jason felt like it had stretched on for an eternity. Leslie had given him something to bridge the doses of painkillers in between her clinic and his arrival to the manor, but all it had done was make him tired and horribly, _horribly_ motion sick.

By the time they pulled into the main drive of the manor, he was doing his best to keep his breathing even and the contents of his stomach where they belonged. Tim and Dick had to help him, one on either side, up the steps and into the house, Alfred close behind.

“You think you can make it up the stairs?” Tim asks, gently patting Jason’s shoulder. For all the shit Jason gave him, he really did care.  

Jason craned his head to look up the steps, feeling the sharp twist in his side as his still-healing muscles protested. Even without his bunk leg, it would be a trip. He’d gotten up before, taken a few walks and bothered Leslie when clinic hours were open, but those were short bursts of energy. This was a marathon and he’s just coming off of Thanksgiving dinner. This wasn’t going to happen.

At least, not for a less stubborn man.

Jason gritted his teeth and nodded.

“Alright, one at a time,” Tim replied, reassuring as he and Dick took one step up and helped pull Jason along. They never rushed him, never took too many steps, just waited on his signal to progress. Alfred surpassed them as the trio finally breached the second floor, Jason struggling to keep himself from heaving at both the pain and exertion.

“I will prepare your medicine, Master Jason.”

Jason wordlessly lifts a hand off Dick’s shoulder in acknowledgement, and his elder brother twists his head to look at him.

“You alright? You need a break?”

“No,” Jason bites out.

“This isn’t a race, Jay. We can slow down if you need to.”

“ _No,_ come on.”

Dick and Tim exchange looks over his head, but they don’t argue further.

Jason makes it across the threshold of the bedroom he’s set up in before he _really_ starts to falter, and it’s a miracle that the bed is a mere five half-crippled steps from the door. He hits the mattress a little too hard, hisses as his ribs protest, and is asleep before Dick even finishes slipping off his sandal.

* * *

 

The first night had been a bit rickety. Sleeping upright was not something Jason was unused to, considering his experience with damaged ribs or shoulders or anything that didn’t really warrant sleeping on one’s side, but he had also popped a stick on his back during his determination to get to bed as quickly as possible. Jason apologized to Alfred at least three times for destroying the linen with his blood, and Tim had to suture him back up and change his bandages. Alfred, a true companion as ever, had only waved a dismissive hand as he folded down the new sheets over the mattress.

“Master Jason, this household has seen its fair share of blood. This was not the first. It will most certainly not be the last.”

The first part of the second day was spent, thankfully, mostly asleep. Dick had outfitted the room with general attention grabbers – television, games, even one of the general PCs used most often by Tim when he needed a backup processor. Halloween was in full swing; when Jason found the energy to channel surf, a good number of them had cheesy “classic horror” marathons running.

The knock at the door roused Jason from his doze; he had gotten about thirty minutes into _The Blob_ and started to wipe out. The handle turned and blonde hair spilled into view before he had a chance to say _enter_ or _fuck off._

“Jason?” Stephanie used his name like a question – more so to see if he was actually awake or asleep rather than to see if he was apt to company.

(Not that he could really tell her no. That was the thing about Steph and Cass – they _both_ had his number. He didn’t want to admit it, didn’t have to. Despite all the bickering and potshots he threw their way, they knew.)

“How are you feeling?”

Jason blinks the sleep out of his eyes and fights the urge to yawn as she enters the room. “Never better.”

“That’s the spirit,” Steph replies, grinning in triumph. She rounds the bed, glancing at the screen as she passes in front of it. “What’s the movie?”

“Something from the fifties.”

“Is it scary?”

“It’s from the _fifties._ ”

“Touché.”

Steph parks herself on the other side of the bed, elbow propped up on a pillow as she gets comfortable. She _wants_ something. Much as Jason doesn’t mind the company, they weren’t overly close on their own. Cass and Tim were sight unseen, and he knew Stephanie’s tendency to chatter. She was quiet, pretending to watch the movie, and Jason wasn’t really in the mood to sidestep around whatever it was she was approaching.

“Spill it.” Jason doesn’t look away from the screen, eyes half-lidded with fatigue. His chest was starting to ache; he’d have to ask Alfred when his last dose was.

Stephanie didn’t look away from the screen either.

“Spill _what_? Can’t I hang out with you?”

“Yeah. You can. But you don’t.” Jason glances at her from his peripheral. “What is it?”

“ _Ouch.”_ Stephanie mock-pouts, folding her arms over her chest.

“That’s my line, if you haven’t noticed.”

Steph looks nearly defeated as she finally looks fully at him, sighing. She knew him better than to test his patience like this, and he knew her better than to expect her to keep up the charade.

“I just wanted to check in. For real. Are you doing okay?”

Jason let out a long breath, careful not to agitate his ribs further.

“I’m doing a lot better than I was. Ribs hurt, but I’m breathing.”

“Well, yeah. I guess that’s a win. We were all pretty worried. I didn’t really get to see you much.”

“I forgive you.”

“ _Thanks._ ” Steph tilts her head, watching him carefully. Toeing the line. “But I meant, like, doing okay _here._ Like being here.”

So it begins. The pity party. They were all going to trickle in, baby him in their own way. Act like if they were too stern or too unsympathetic he would bolt off the second he got his window of opportunity. He wasn’t sure if he was just cranky from fatigue or cranky from the subject as a whole, but he tried to keep a lid on it. He promised Dick he’d give it an honest go. It’s not like Stephanie meant it in a bad way.

Jason snorts. “It’s only been a day.”

“Tim said you weren’t real thrilled with it when Dick gave you the option.”

“Am I supposed to be jumping for joy?”

“No. You’d break your other leg,” Steph says, attempting to joke. She knew how bad the strain was between him and Bruce – knew how bad their last quarrel (if it could even be _called_ that) had gotten. Why she was acting like his aversion was a mystery, he’d never know. The girl sighs after a beat when Jason only finds it in him to huff.

“No, I suppose not. But… you know we’re here for you, right?

_Where were you when I needed that kind of help back then?_

If it ever came down to it, they never chose him. They always sided with the Bat. But it was easier to just roll with it, to just let Steph try to make him feel better about his situation when _really_ the one she was making better was herself. They all had track records they didn’t want to admit when it came to him and Bruce.

Jason lets his eyes fall closed. “Yeah. I know.”

“Seriously, Jay. We all just want you to get better. August was kind of a wake-up call for the family.” Stephanie pauses, and Jason can feel the bed shift a little bit. “I know _I’m_ tired of losing people. I think the boys agree.”

It’s not anxiety. It’s _not._ Jason can feel himself getting a little overwhelmed – it was only _one day_ since he’d been back (not home, not here, this wasn’t home) to the Manor. He could humor Steph on a lot of things, but family was never a good subject even with a diplomat like Dick. Jason tries to keep the grimace off his face as his pulse quickens and the muscles in his chest contract ever so slightly.

Forget him; it was his _body_ that wasn’t really ready to handle this conversation right now.

“I know, Steph,” He says, trying his best to not seem dismissive. “Hey – think we could – pick this up some other time?”

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Chest,” Jason answers, short and clipped. “Send Alfred, would you?”

“Sure thing.”

Stephanie rises quickly and almost bolts out of the room, voice muffled the further she goes down the hall. Alfred appears soon after, syringe in hand, and judging by the way his face steels as he lays eyes on Jason, he knows he doesn’t even have to ask if he’s alright.

The effect of the meds tapped into his port are immediate. Jason lets out the breath he’d been holding in relief as a wave of calm washes over his chest, stopping the muscles from tensing up. The drowsiness came soon after.

 “Thank you, Alfred.”

“You’re welcome, Master Jason.” Alfred reaches for Jason’s wrist, and looks at his own watch-adorned one, starting the vitals process. “I do believe that it would be best if you did not have visitors for the moment.”

Jason lets his gaze drift towards the door, noting the faces that were jockeying for spots to peek into the room. They all must have come running when Stephanie called for Alfred.

“ _None,_ ” Alfred said, a little louder than his usual volume, and just like that the family scattered. The butler sighed.

“Get some rest, my boy. Patrol is due to start soon – but I will be back to check in on you soon.”

Jason makes a noncommittal sound, too focused on the way he could breathe easy again. He didn’t even hear Alfred’s footsteps – just the gentle click of the door, the soft sounds of an old movie, and the slow of his breath as he fades away.

* * *

 

The next few days aren’t so great for his track record of healing. On _one_ hand, it made the irony almost too comical, on the other, Leslie had to step in and place a drain tube into his chest when his damaged lung started trying to implode and fill itself with fluid. Alfred kept watch on the bat brats like a hawk, running interference and keeping Jason comfortable to the best he knew how, but really, Jason knows some days are just going to really, _really_ suck.

Doesn’t help all that much to know it.

Dick comes in every so often. He’s the only one that Alfred grants access to, the rest of Jason’s overexuberant siblings stopped with barely passive, tactful threats only Alfred Pennyworth himself could really ever make intimidating. Jason knows they don’t mean harm; jury’s still out on Damian, but the one time Demon Spawn made it past Alfred’s defenses, it was to drop off a new stack of reading material with a side of snide comments, so Jason can’t exactly condemn him just yet. It’s just too much and too many people trying to offer too many words of support or encouragement and that’s the polar opposite of his stay. This was temporary, that’s all.

It wasn’t because he wanted to. It was because it was the lesser of two unfavorable situations.

Dick at least knows better than to coddle him. Having spent the longest time with him out of any of the family members – both before _and_ after Jason’s untimely end and rebeginning – Dick seems to know when’s a good time to say what thing and when’s a good time to just shut the fuck up. Sometimes it’s a few minutes in passing, sometimes it’s an hour, some days Jason sees absolutely nobody at all save for Alfred bringing meals or medication. (Those are his favorite days.)

Nobody really mentions Bruce. Jason had braced himself for it in the beginning, had devised plans to skirt around the subject and just not think about it for now, but it almost disappointed him in the way they knew not to really bring up the old man. Maybe he wanted to fight about it. Maybe he wanted to stir the pot a little, make his siblings realize that this didn’t mean things were magically fixed and he was here to stay.

The updates are few and far in between, never prompted, and Jason nearly forgets about it until Dick knocks on his door and pokes his head in two weeks later. Jason’s got his head half-buried in a book, the other part of him trying to decide if it wants to pull him the rest of the way into sleep.

“Just thought you should know,” Dick murmurs quietly, prompting Jason to look up.

He’d been kind of expecting it like this now, just like this, with his elder brother trying to soften the news as best as he could. It’s not like the day wasn’t coming. It was _his_ house, after all.

It still hits a little different when his brother finally says it.

“Bruce is up. He’ll be here in a few days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk who needed to hear this too but maximum security won that fuckin kentucky derby you can't tell me otherwise
> 
> EDIT: fixed the tidus and todd dynamic duo typo >:^)


	4. in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What did you do?”
> 
> Leslie hesitated. 
> 
> “I asked Bruce if he ever prayed.”

On mornings like these, where fog hovered over the city and snow lay clean from the night before, Dick’s favorite pastime was to go for a drive.

Dick’s fingers drummed absently on the wheel as he cruised over the county line, not even taking on Gotham’s streets since his departure from the manor. It was a stark contrast from the concrete jungles of Gotham City and Blüdhaven, rolling plots of land dusted in white with clusters of trees shedding leaves as fast as they could. Dick _knew_ the urban life, knew it and respected it, but there was always something to be said for the countryside. He definitely saw more of it while on the road with the circus than the cities they toured.

The drive itself wasn’t anything special; he didn’t have a particular enthusiasm for it, one hand on the wheel and the other propping up his head away from the driver’s window, soft music playing and very carefully going no further than five over. He wasn’t using the opportunity of solitude to be reckless or spontaneous or anything out of the normal. But it was _quiet,_ and it left him to think, which you never really get to appreciate until you’re holding together a very uneasy nest of bats together. His phone lay on the middle bench next to the shift knob, face down.

If they needed him – _really_ needed him – they’d call. He’d be back within the next hour, and most of the crew would be sleeping.

 “Are you _sure_ you’re going to be alright, Master Dick?” Alfred had asked him, hesitating when Dick had asked for his set of keys.

It took everything in him to not claw them out of Alfred’s hand. Instead, he just smiled, nodding. “Yeah. I’ll be alright. I just need to step out for a bit.”

The last few nights had been rough.

The last few _months_ had been rough.

That first night was easily one of the worst nights in Dick’s life – which is impressive, really, considering the long list of _bad days_ Dick had stowed away in his lifetime. (Were you even really a ward of the Wayne family if you _didn’t_ have some sort of trauma to bring to the table?)

It comes in waves, little ebbs of memory. Nothing strings together completely. He knows he had to wrap his arms around Damian to stop him from jumping right into the fire. Remembers the frantic words of Barbara in his ear as she relayed the last known location of Jason, remembers the crackle of Bruce’s battered voice clipping in and out of the comms. Remembers the blood. The scene. The sirens. The feel of a faint pulse slipping away and Kevlar beneath his palms as he counts and Damian blows air into his father’s lungs.

Leslie’s clinic was an all-hands-on-deck race to the finish. It was all odds against the outcome; they were down to the wire, pulling shrapnel from the old man’s chest and a pipe from the younger. Life and death, neck and neck, and it was clear who the favorite was. The violence of Leslie’s obscenities as Jason’s heart gave out still rang loud in Dick’s ears.

Even after, nothing really ever settled. Leslie had stepped out into the hallway for a breather, an insurmountable of time later, and didn’t say anything to Dick who sat in a chair with his head in his hands. The family remained scattered amongst the rooms, preoccupied with monitoring the two closest calls they’d seen in a while. There had been so much chaos, so many noises and voices and unspoken fears. The silence wasn’t comforting, but it was a break in the fog, and Dick didn’t even have the will to put on his brave face when it was just the two of them. Even if he did – Leslie had been there before _all_ of them. She would know.

“Is it going to get better?” He asked after a few minutes, voice hoarse and tired. If you listened for it, you could hear the heart monitors beyond the doors.

Leslie said nothing for a while, eyes closed as she leaned against the wall next to him. When she did speak, it was soft, quiet, a tone he imagines she used when addressing folks who just lost a family member.

“Bruce came in here once, years ago, with that boy.” She swallowed. “It was pouring rain, and he had him in his arms.”

Dick said nothing, didn’t move, just kept his head in his hands – but he had the feeling that Leslie was talking to more than him, maybe not to him at all.

“He had been shot. Just a little thing back then, Jason was. He was dying. And Bruce came to me, asked for my help. To save him.”

Dick’s heart started to sink. He was tired. Overwhelmed. Already it had become something he’s not sure he wanted to hear that evening – everything that happened seemed like enough of an emotional toll – but curiosity and closure beckoned him to ask. He turned his head, one palm holding it up as he looked at her.

“What did you do?”

Leslie hesitated.

“I asked Bruce if he ever prayed.”

Dick felt eyes begin to mist over and he blinked, hard.

“He said no.” Leslie stood upright, took her weight off the wall, and even though she tried her best to keep it out, Dick could hear the waver in her voice.

“I told him he might want to start.”

 

Dick pinches the bridge of his nose, the sigh that leaves his nose long-winded and tired. The song on the radio had faded out and bridged over to something on the shuffle that was a little too chipper, too fast, too _everything._

He could just skip it.

He doesn’t. Instead he smacks the volume knob, muting the music and leaving silence in its wake.

 

 

Even when the dust had settled, everything was still in shambles. Dick can’t remember – doesn’t even know if he ever _has_ seen it – a time when Damian had looked so distressed and small, curled up in the chair next to Bruce with a near death-grip on his father’s hand. Stephanie and Cassandra consoled one another, doing their best to put on brave faces. Tim tried to follow Dick’s footsteps, tried to remain the level-headed one in a situation of chaos, but even Dick didn’t have any words of wisdom to offer.

They’d fought Harvey. Bane. The Court of Owls. Killer Croc. Joker. And yet it was this – _this_ particular man, white suit and southern politeness and no meta gene, that came the closest to shattering the family in one night. Jason had asked for their help for a reason.

For a moment, Dick had wondered if it had been something planned -- if the side effects of the Lazarus Pit were returning.

He spent the rest of the week feeling guilt for that thought alone.

They didn’t see Jason much if he could help it. He kept to himself, stayed out of town when he could and kept it low when he couldn’t. He and Bruce were alright, but they weren’t… _alright._ It was like twine holding up a piano, just waiting for the wrong shift of weight to make their olive branch snap. They never really _talked;_ Jason had the habit of inevitably elbowing himself back into their lives, intentional or not, and seemed to somehow skip the entirety of a peaceful confrontation.

There were talks of family or there were shouts of betrayal. There were hugs or there were fists. Nothing really ever came in between.

Dick knew Jason was trying his best. Just like they all were.

And maybe, just _maybe_ – Bruce’s expectations were a little unfair.

A lot. A lot unfair. Dick remembered how Bruce gouged into him for using _Nightwing_ methods instead of _Batman_ methods, and he didn’t even kill anybody.

 _This will be good for them,_ Dick thinks to himself. It’s not like they’ll have anything better to do than to hash it out, and weapons are out of the equation. _They’ll get it sorted._

He thinks.

He _hopes._

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce is awake for the morning when Dick knocks quietly on the doorframe, popping his head into the room as a courtesy before entering the rest of the way. Damian is there – as he presumably had been all morning, if news from Alfred on the drive back had been any indication. The boy was in the middle of telling a story, so engrossed in his own tale that he only spared Dick a quick glance before rushing to finish it.

“ – And I was apprehending them, as usual, but one of their fighting dogs had already sustained injuries. I was half-expecting the animal to charge at me once I tried to approach it, but she only tucked her tail and crawled – _crawled,_ Father – to me.”

Dick knows this story already. It was a patrol from a few weeks ago; word had gotten around that a dog-fighting ring was growing, and nobody wanted it busted more than Robin himself. He had made swift work of the offenders before any of the other family members could make it to the scene. Dick tries not to let his amusement show as Damian puffs out his chest, arms folded and ever-righteous.

Bruce looks like he’s a mix between proud and tired.

“ _Hh_ – please tell me you did not bring _another_ animal home.”

“I’m still thinking of a name.”

A snort escapes Dick and Bruce’s head turns to look at him, eyes accusatory.

“ _Sorry._ ” (Yeah, no he wasn’t.) Dick raised his hands, admitting guilt. “You should see her. She’s cute.”

The dog was a failure at being brave – definitely not the next _Bat-hound,_ maybe, but with the time that the family had been going through and the way Damian clutched to an animal he could _easily_ fix, Dick didn’t really find it in him to tell the boy no. It’s not like they didn’t have the room, at least.

Bruce was either in a good mood or too tired to argue it; he let his head fall against the propped up pillows, sighing.

He was a sight to behold, that’s for sure. Bandages were taped all across his chest from his collarbone to his abdomen, covering various almost-healed sutures. Purple and blue discoloration seeped out from underneath one on his left side, just below his chest, still angry but healing. His leg was in a cast, immobilized up over the knee. Overall, he didn’t look too worse for wear – but Dick knew from helping put the old man back together himself that most of _his_ injuries lay beneath the skin.

“How are you?” Dick asked, pulling up a chair next to Damian. “ _Besides_ finding out the family zoo has grown, I mean.”

“Fine,” Bruce feeds him the most classic – and _incorrect_ – line in the book.

Dick glances at Damian from his peripheral.

“How is he?”

“Father can speak for himself,” Damian argued, but just as quickly ratted him out. ( _Aha,_ you can’t beat their Batman and Robin.) “—Even though it is rather _obvious_ that movement hurts.”

“My eldest and my youngest, _both_ ganging up on me,” Bruce murmurs, the muscle in his jaw tensing as he adjusts to sit a little more upright.

“B, you got _shot_ at close range and your surgery count went up by like, at _least_ four in the last three months. Unless you’re suddenly Clark, I’d say I’d be more surprised if you were like, _legitimately_ okay.”

“ _Hh._ ”

“At least you will return home, where you belong.” Damian’s arms fold over his chest as he sits back in his chair, fingers drumming the crook of his arm. “I assume you won’t need convincing.”

Dick couldn’t elbow him in the ribs quick enough. Jason being at the Manor wasn’t a secret, by any means, but Dick wanted this whole thing to go as _smoothly_ as possible. It was unexpectedly like reintroducing two animals into the same enclosure; they either got on like a house on fire, ignored each other, or went for the jugular. The odds weren’t really in favor of option one, and three wasn’t an option Dick was going to let be on the table. Two still felt like a Hail Mary he was precariously setting up.

Damian scowls and makes a face at Dick, ready to caterwaul, but a stern look from the eldest made him think better of it. Bruce watches the both of them with a careful gaze.

“How is he?” Bruce asks. “Jason.”

Dick thinks of the past few nights. While Jason was mostly cooperative – _cooperative_ being relative to his _usual_ level of willingness to follow directions, which was not a high bar at all – it was slow healing. He didn’t like to inform anybody of anything until it got real bad. Leslie had already threatened him twice with returning to the clinic if he wasn’t going to be more honest about his injuries. It takes every bit of muscle control in Dick’s face to resist wincing as he thinks about Jason’s increased stiffness with all the family members at the news of Bruce; when Dick had told him, Jason looked like an animal waiting for an opening to flee.  

He hadn’t, not yet. So there was that.

Dick thinks about his nights running interference with Alfred and trying to decide if Jason is _really_ doing okay or making like a bird and hiding it, and scrubs his hands over his face.

“Stubborn,” He states bluntly. “But he’s alive and kicking.”

“Define ‘ _kicking._ ’”

“Considering you two are twinsies now with the casts, very much _not literal._ ”

“He’s in a cast?”

“ _Easy,_ Detective.” Dick folds his arms over his chest and sits back in his chair, gesturing to Bruce’s current condition. “I know you’ll catch up on his file later. You’ve got enough on your plate.”

He was trying to make a joke, trying to head off Bruce’s hound on the trail, but it was a moot point. The man fixated on Jason’s status, his frown deepening.

“Dick.”

It’s Damian’s turn to elbow his elder brother, and _damn it,_ Dick doesn’t know what he’s most disconcerted with more – the fact that he’s botching his own careful plan or that he knows _exactly_ what a thinly-veiled smug Damian looks like.

“He’s doing alright. Really. He’s probably comfortable and sleeping right now. We had a few setbacks – made a few house calls a few days in – but he’s doing well. Ask Leslie.”

“And what about what Damian said?”

Dick raises an eyebrow. “You think Jason _wouldn’t_ need convincing to go to the Manor?”

Bruce goes quiet at that, and Dick senses he might’ve struck a nerve. They might’ve reconciled a bit, enough for Jason to play ( _half-heartedly,_ but at least he was _trying_ ) by Bruce’s rules one more time as he staked out Bates, but nothing ever really sorted itself out. With the others, for all their valid criticisms of his inability to talk about feelings, he could actually – _really_ make up with them.

Then again, none of the others in the family ever really toed ( _stomped across_ ) the line like Jason did. (And nobody ever really got into a fight with the _Batman_ like Jason did.)

The family dynamic was a little dysfunctional, full stop.

Dick tries to keep Bruce from thinking too much, which sounds like an oxymoron in of itself. “It doesn’t matter, B. We sorted it out and he’s there and he’s getting the proper care he needs. Just give him space.”

Damian’s watch interrupts the conversation with a beep, and all occupants turn to look at it. Damian clicks his tongue sourly as he dismisses a notification from Tim: _PATROL AT 9._

“Why must we start patrol early on _Halloween?”_ The boy gripes, jutting his chin out. “Such an insipid holiday with insipid costumes and stupidity.”

“Easy on the dictionary before you rupture something,” Dick replies, reaching over and intentionally mussing up Damian’s hair. “And secondly, Halloween is a fun holiday. And _thirdly,_ we do patrol early because people like to overkill the holiday spirit.”

Damian growls and takes a half-hearted swipe at him, but it’s easily evaded. Out of all the family members, Damian found Dick the most tolerable and the one he enjoyed the company of most (even his father, Dick knew, but they would never say such a thing out loud). Both boys turned to look at Bruce, Dick struggling to keep an innocent look on his face.

“Sorry you’re missing out on the spooky side of things, B,” Dick says, growing more serious, “But at least you’ll be home.”

Bruce doesn’t look reassured (Then again, when does he _ever?_ , Dick thinks) and absently places a hand over one of the bandaged entry wounds.

“Just a few days.”

“Just a few _weeks,_ Bruce, or so help you God.”

All three members of the family snap their gaze to Leslie as she closes the door behind her, clipboard tucked into the crook of her arm as she levels Bruce with a stern no-bullshittery stare. The doctor was looking better these days, a little more rested and a little less emphasis on her stress lines, but between checking up on (and threatening) Jason and answering questions and checking in on other patients, Dick really wondered how the woman ever got any sleep at all. Just her luck, falling in with a lot like them.

“If I catch wind of you being out on those rooftops before I personally give you a clean bill of health, I will drag you back here myself. And if I can’t do it myself, I know plenty of those who will do it for me.”

At first Dick wonders when Leslie figured out who the members of the Justice League were, but when his hair stands on his neck and he looks from Bruce to Leslie he realizes she’s staring daggers at both him and Damian.

Damian tuts. Dick very pointedly looks away.

Two constants: One, Bruce was a terrible patient. Two, Batman’s family tended to be cowed into letting him decide his own fitness of health. (Even if they weren’t, he _still_ got his way somehow, because of _course_ he did.)

“I’m serious, boys. I’ll rip up these discharge papers in front of your very eyes.”

 _Like that’d stop him,_ Damian and Dick’s exchanged glance seemed to say, but Bruce just huffed.

“Gotham needs Batman.”

“Gotham is going to have a lot more problems to deal with if you keel over dead in two weeks. Your immune system is still weak. And frankly, I don’t care what it needs.” Leslie handed him the clipboard but withheld her pen. “You have a lot of power to back you up until you’re healed, use it. Don’t get in that goddamn suit.”

Bruce stares her down with an equally disgruntled look, a war of wills clashing between them. Leslie should probably know better, but Leslie _also_ hasn’t really pushed the envelope as bad as this time. Nor put the ball in his _sons’_ court instead of his to hold him accountable. Leslie holds out the pen for him.

“I’ll do check-ins every two days for the first two weeks, but if I need to see your boy again I’ll stop in on you too. Once a week after that until I think you’re good to go. I know Mr. Pennyworth will have his hands full, but I’m sure you pay _him_ a much nicer salary to babysit you and your little clutch than you pay me. And I’ll _know_ if you’ve been out. Capeesh?”

 You could hear a pin drop in those seconds of silence, Bruce’s displeasure clear in the air as he stares at the discharge papers. As stubborn as he could be, when Leslie was being dead serious nobody else could take the cake. Even if she didn’t have an arsenal of powers or equipment at her beck and call, it would at the very least be a _pain in the ass_ to avoid her and even more difficult if she shut the clinic door on him. (Not that Dick ever thinks she actually _would,_ but the woman was better off a placated ally than a bitter one.) Bruce knew it too.

He adjusts the pen in his hand, and with a gruff, “Fine,” signs the page.

* * *

 

 

“You’re not him.”

Gordon always says it in a matter-of-fact way. It’s not offensive – he’s right, after all, Dick is _not_ Bruce beneath the cowl – it’s just a statement of something that only Jim Gordon would find obvious, having worked closely with the Batman and all of his connections for years. The commissioner’s face lights up in the dim glow of his lighter, and he takes a long puff from his pipe.

Dick doesn’t even bother confirming nor denying it. They’ve done this song and dance before, years ago, even more recently. This wasn’t a first encounter.

“Same business this time, I take it?”

Dick shakes his head. No – not about Bruce’s grief. “What do you know about a Duncan Bates?”

It’s been two weeks since the collapse on the Lane. Two weeks since Bruce and Jason were nearly killed. Still _might_ be, Dick adds in his mind. Bruce was fighting a nasty infection and Jason couldn’t breathe on his own.

“Duncan Bates,” Gordon repeats, shoving one hand into his coat pocket. “Bigwig not native to the area. Slippery, sells his own brand of _‘medicine’_ on the streets. Busted two guys for possession a month ago – one died on the way into the station. The other said he got it from a man named Cavalla; one of Bates’ dealers.”

“Do you have remaining samples of the narcotics?”

“A little. When we ran our tests all remaining doses had the exact same percentages of compounds, exact same everything. Both purchased from the same man – both of the guys we picked up had the same story, split their stash. The first guy didn’t overdose; his autopsy showed he had just enough to start feeling the _intended_ effect of the drug.”

“But one died and the other didn’t,” Dick murmured. Gordon nodded.

“The remaining perp is a little out of it, traumatized, but we’re preparing to question him. I can pull some samples of the doses if you want them.”

“Please.”

The rest of it could be accessed in the Batcave; Bruce had the archives of Gotham PD loaded up into their system for years, and Tim did a daily download of the new files as they rolled in every time they readied for patrol. He’d view the autopsy report and the police report later.

Jim gets a funny look on his face, but says nothing as he turns and makes for the door. It latches behind him and Dick stands, peering over the rooftops, waiting as the rain starts to roll over the city.

“Everything alright?” Oracle’s voice asks in his ear. She’s hesitant, as if he’s been rewired and she’s not sure what’s safe territory anymore.

“Everything’s fine,” Dick replies. “Picking up samples now – I’ll head to the Batcave and run diagnostics after. How is it going, Red Robin, Robin?”

“Quiet,” Tim says. “It’s the first cold front of the year and sopping wet, nobody wants to be out in it.”

“Black Bat and I have nothing to report,” Damian says stiffly. “It has been uneventful in our district as well.”

Both of the responses are, usually, par for the course on a slow night, but the _delivery_ is what makes Dick’s heart hurt a little worse. It’s official, _too_ official, like it’s everyone’s first day on the job and they’re trying way too hard to overcompensate in the name of professionalism. There’s no conversation on the comms if there doesn’t need to be any. There’s no banter, no idle wondering about late night dinners, no casual check-ins that go unprompted. Everyone’s on high alert, waiting, holding their breath for any information that might lead them like a pack of hounds after a sly fox like Bates.

It’s ironic, really. Bruce always preached to them about keeping the lines clear, keeping it strictly for business only. “It’s _safer_ that way,” He would say. “You can talk about _other_ things on your own time.” Not that anybody _listened_ back then. It was cracking jokes and asking simple questions over the sound of fists connecting with flesh and the occasional spark of bickering that was quieted by the waning patience in Bruce’s words. But now, it was all they did. All they suddenly knew were Bruce’s teachings, like if they didn’t put them into place now his influence would be lost upon the family forever.

“Thirty more minutes, then call it for patrol.” Dick ordered. Everyone gave their various forms of acknowledgement, and the line went quiet once again.

Dick takes his solace in the silence as minutes pass without Gordon’s presence, but he finds that the cold is just beginning to seep through the uniform by the time the old man comes back to the roof and fishes two small samples of the street drug out of his coat pocket for Dick to take.

“There. That should be enough to run a few different tests on, we’re still figuring out what exactly made the man go into organ failure. I’ll light the signal if I know more.”

He reaches up, switches the spotlight off. “And for the record? Batman doesn’t say please.”

Silence. Of course. There’s nobody there. Gordon looks about, hands on his hips, and huffs. He hates – _hates_ – when he does that. When _they_ do that.

“….Guess you all learned from the best, didn’tcha?” Gordon says, and turns back into the station.

In forty minutes Dick is back in the Batcave, stripped out of the cape and cowl and into jeans and a long-sleeve as he stares through the lens of a microscope. He doesn’t move when he can hear the dim purr and the dull roar of Tim and Damian’s respective bikes making their way into the cave, Alfred dutifully waiting with towels for damp hair and mugs of tea, coffee, and a hot chocolate for Damian as the rest of the family trickles in.

“Found anything?” Is Tim’s first question when he kills the motor and gets off his bike, gratefully accepting Alfred’s offer of coffee and slinging a towel haphazardly over his dripping hair. Dick lifts his head from the lens, shaking his head. It’s hard to keep the frustration off his face.

“Not yet. Haven’t been looking long, though. Gordon said they didn’t see anything different in the trace elements – and I’m not seeing much of one, either.”

“And the reports?”

“Already pulled up on the Batcomputer,” Dick replied, nodding his head towards the expansive set of screens. “You can either take over here and I can look at the reports or sift through them there.”

Even though he was tired, there was no denying the spark of engagement in Tim’s eyes. Never doubt the mind of a boy who thrives off of the investigative work. As he starts for the computer, Dick pops his head back up.

“Wait, Tim – go get out of the suit. Shower. Change. Eat some of Alfie’s cooking. Goes for all of you,” He says, looking pointedly at the rest of the family that had just rolled in, “An hour to yourselves won’t make a difference right now.”

“It _might,_ ” Stephanie protests, pulling down the fabric that covered her face. “We don’t know that. Can we at least have the option of now or later?”

Dick’s gaze flickers to Cassandra, his energy waning, and she seems to understand. She moves to Stephanie and tugs her sleeve once, twice, before heading up the stairs.

“If it were time sensitive, I wouldn’t be giving you the option,” Dick reassures. “You guys. Go.”

He ducks back down as the family takes their leave and starts fiddling with the controls, examining for anything different he might’ve missed after staring down the scope for ages. It doesn’t take long for him to feel the prickling sense at the back of his neck that a pair of eyes is watching, and when he looks up, Damian stands there, looking what could only be described as perplexed.

“Damian,” Dick tries to be soft, even though soft isn’t something that really _works_ in tune with Damian – it’s a kindness the kid never really got accustomed to. “Are you going to go upstairs?”

Damian doesn’t answer. Instead he avoids Dick’s inquisitive gaze and turns toward the computer, cape barely brushing the ground as he takes sweeping steps towards the chair. Instead of getting in it, however, his hand reaches out to touch the top of it, resting there as the youngest stared up at the screen.

 _Something’s wrong,_ is Dick’s instinctual thought, but it’s followed by bitterness. Of course something’s wrong. Everything’s wrong right now. The family’s running themselves ragged, barely scrambling over the shock that was two weeks ago, only now really starting to get back into the swing of patrol. Jason’s half-dead, and Leslie’s not going one way or another on what she _thinks_ is going to happen. Bruce is clinging on barely, and Leslie’s a little more hopeful – maybe it helps that he didn’t try to die _nearly_ as fast as Jason did – but as far as prognosis goes, they’re both not doing so great.

“Damian?”

Quiet. Then, in the stiff, sullen voice: “Why did we do this?”

Dick’s brow furrows, puzzled. He steps away from the lab table, edging around the corner of it. “What do you mean?”

“This. _Agree_ to this.” Damian leans forward with the hand that isn’t resting on the chair and taps a few keys, pulling up the information they’d been accumulating on Bates. News articles flash up across the Midwest – Missouri, Nevada, Louisiana, New Mexico, the articles kept coming. Several dead. Several names for the same thing. Cause of death the same. Death reeked among urban cities. Dick moved to stand beside Damian, watching the info appear.

Damian doesn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Todd must have known what he was getting himself into. He asked Father for assistance and didn’t tell anyone how complicated it really was.”

Was he -- ? Dick glanced down at Damian. “You blame Jason,” He says, more a statement than a question.

“Father trusted him, which is his biggest mistake,” Damian says, his face hardening as he watches the screens. “Always his biggest mistake, he always believes Todd can do better – and now he is paying for it.”

“Dami, this isn’t Jason’s fault,” Dick says, placing a hand on Damian’s shoulder and bending a knee down to be more level with him. “You have to understand that. This wasn’t his fault.”

“Then _whose_ was it? Yours?” Damian rounds on him, grasping Dick’s wrist and pulling it from his shoulder. “Are you going to accept the responsibility? Do you feel _guilty_ for what happened between him and Father – so now you justify his actions?”

This wasn’t Damian – it might have been, once upon a time, so driven upon the ideologies of _survival of the fittest_ and how family handled their matters by slaying weak or problematic members, but it wasn’t the Damian Dick had taken beneath his wing. It wasn’t the one who stopped for stray cats or who saved children from peril. It wasn’t the one who sparred playfully with Jon Kent when he thought nobody was around to hear him laugh. It wasn’t the one who loved his brothers, his family, even if he could not form the actual words to say it out loud.

It was an angry child. A scared child.

“I’m not justifying anyone’s actions,” Dick said. “But don’t get wrapped up in the idea that Jason is the one to pin this on. This is solely about Bates – if anything, Jason gave us the heads up on him. He’s setting up in Gotham.”

“Todd said it was a _small deal._ He needed clearance with Father to operate here. We should have let him handle this _alone._ ”

“Do you think your dad would have _let_ him?”

Damian bares his teeth. “Then he shouldn’t have let him come back at all!”

“But he did.” Dick says evenly. “That wasn’t a choice we got to make. Not yours, not mine, not even Jason’s.” 

That was their family. It was just what Bruce did.

“Then Father is an even bigger fool than I thought,” Damian says, trying to sound hardened, but his composure starts to crack around the edges and his voice thickens. “He is a fool for doing what he did, and he is a fool for believing in Todd, and now he is suffering and I _hate_ him for it, I _hate_ him –”

Dick pulls Damian to his chest as the boy breaks, like water cracking through a dam, and holds him tight as the first sob breaks over. Damian collapses into him, clenching Dick’s shirt in his fists, all the anger and fear from a few weeks’ worth boiling over in one fell swoop. Thirteen years, he’s _thirteen years old,_ Dick thinks, and makes no effort to shush the boy’s tears. He only offers comfort, a safe embrace, a few whispers that they would all be okay.

They’ve all lost someone before. They’ve all thought Bruce to have fallen before, to be gone forever. But there’s a difference between having it happen _suddenly,_ Dick thinks, and watching it drag along limping. The former is a sharp cut, clean and painful but has the means to be mended. The latter is gutting and excruciating and sure to leave scars – and he senses Damian’s fear, feels it in his own chest, just like he felt it when he saw the smears of blood and two figures amongst the rubble. It’s taken a toll on everyone, and Damian – no matter his training, no matter his upbringing or rules or whatever his mother made him to be – was still, at the center of it all, just a _boy._

“…Hey, Dami,” Dick murmurs, only when the youngest’s sobs have begun to subside, “First thing in the morning, early, we’ll go to Leslie’s clinic and get an update. Go visit.”

Damian’s breath still hitches slightly as he pulls away from the junction of Dick’s neck, looking embittered more by his display of emotion than by the treatment.

“What am I, a child?” He asks indignantly, voice thick as he sniffs and pulls a glove off to scrub at his eyes. Dick shakes his head, the corners of his mouth turning up at the pitiful irony.

“No. But we need to stay in the loop, and Tim can stay here and work on finding more about this stuff. Duncan will get his justice.”

Damian hesitates, not entirely placated, but eventually nods. Dick stands, pulling Damian to his feet, and passes a hand over the boy’s hair. It still earns him a swipe; the lack of energy makes it easy to dodge, but at least the kid isn’t losing his fire. “Go. Get out of the uniform. Get a shower. Go to bed. Pick it all back up tomorrow.”

It would be okay – one way or another.

That’s what family’s for.

* * *

 

 

All in all, the homecoming is about what Bruce expects.

His extensive experience with handling near-death injuries makes his transition back to the Manor a lot easier than Jason’s had been. Even on crutches, weakened and tired, Bruce Wayne still maintains his authority; it’s his house, his home, his family and children and everything familiar to come back to. He was still _Batman,_ just a little more battered than when he was last here, and there’s always the ghost of triumph whenever he was really supposed to die and got back up yet again.

Not that he could _be_ Batman. Dick didn’t have to ask him to know he wasn’t pleased that Dick was pulling double patrols – some nights as the Bat, some nights as Nightwing. So he wouldn’t mention it. Leslie would skin him if he gave Bruce even an inkling of an idea that maybe he was needed right now, that maybe he had verifiable reason to put the mantle over his own healing. Dick spent some nights at the manor, some nights in Bludhaven, like a child with custody split between two parents. Always, _always,_ though, he would stop to check in at least once, and remind Bruce that he was not to do anything stupid.

They could only do so much to keep Bruce at bay, though. Tim would sit with him during the morning and go over business proposals for Wayne Enterprises, animatedly discussing numbers and strategies and results of their merger. Bruce would listen and comment when needed, giving gentle guidance as he ate his breakfast and sipped his coffee and tried to not think about how patrol went for them when Tim hides a shiner on the underside of his jaw.

Damian would come home in the afternoons and complain about school – how boring it was, how much better he could do, had _been_ doing for a long time, but he’d park himself on the open side of Bruce’s king bed and still finish his math homework with disdain. Bruce would talk to him about physics and equations and grad level subjects just to keep the boy’s mind at peace. It was an odd sort of bonding, but it worked, and Damian seemed at ease the more time he spent in the presence of his alive-and-breathing father.

When Stephanie and Cassandra were on the patrol roster, they would come in to see him. Cass was quiet and careful and sure not to squeeze Bruce’s hand too tightly when she took it. She was a lot of words in a lot of silence, a way only Bruce really understood, and he appreciated her sentiments. Stephanie would sit and catch him up on the more social aspects of being Bruce Wayne, talk and visit and let him know that he’d get back to business as usual in no time.

“Not that I’m saying _rush._ Take your time,” Steph clarifies. “But we’re glad to see you here.”

All the family members in their own way were scrambling a little, as if a window of opportunity had surfaced for each of them to spend an extended amount of time with him when he wasn’t well enough to be out on the streets, preferring the sound of connecting hits and Gotham City’s busy traffic rather than his children’s voices clipping through the comm links. Bruce knew that it was foreign territory for them, but he found himself resigned to the fact that they were merely trying to interact with a part of him that rarely saw daylight anymore (literally and figuratively).

Save for one, at least.

He’d read the files Dick had given him access to like promised. It was a miracle that Jason was still alive, even more so that he was not utterly catatonic. It was like a ghost looming as his eyes passed over the pages, reading Leslie’s examinations and surgeries and feeling dread grip him as if he expected a different outcome at the end of it. An estimated time of death stamp. An autopsy report. Another funeral. It made him nauseated in a way that hadn’t surfaced in several years.

Nobody mentioned Jason, which was both surprising and not. Leslie would check in, as promised, every two days – but even she seemed to guard her mention of Jason. He listened for the name to drop in conversation, something passing in the hallway, but everyone took care to keep the boy’s name out of their mouths within his range of hearing. It’s how it was usually; they got uncomfortable with mention of Jason. Bruce knows it is not out of any dislike towards the second eldest, but rather their fear of _his_ reaction – his disapproval and guilt and everything in between. Even Alfred, almost a week in, had yet to address the elephant in the room. It irritated him.

When the butler comes in early on the fifth morning, sleeves rolled to just below his elbows as he brings breakfast with him, Bruce asks.

“Alfred, why have none of you said anything about Jason?”

“Good morning to you as well, Master Bruce.” Alfred, steady as ever, puts the tray of breakfast – an omelet and toast – on the nightstand. “It’s simple. You have not asked.”

 _I shouldn’t_ have _to,_ Bruce thinks, irritable. It was the first time in _years_ that Jason was beneath this roof, and yet Bruce got more updates during his stay at Leslie’s clinic than he did here. The family knew him better than to think they needed to walk on eggshells, and yet they did.

“This is me asking, then.” The patience is thin in his voice. “How _is_ he?”

Alfred raises an eyebrow and sets about the room for his morning routine. “Healing, Master Bruce, as are you. He is being kept comfortable for now.”

“His injuries?”

“They are doing better, although he has been placed on antibiotics for his lungs. He would be faring _much_ better if he were not so keen on being independent.” Alfred fixes his stare on Bruce pointedly. “Much like _another_ I might know of.”

Bruce ignores his butler’s jab, knowing well that he didn’t have much to defend himself with. Jason developing pneumonia wasn’t something that was unexpected – chest wounds tended to complicate themselves, as wet and chilly as Gotham could usually be, and he can only hope they are merely heading it off before it settles. He still remembers the first time _he_ contracted it after a few broken ribs, and patrolled the rooftops for months with a barely-hidden cough.

The answers were vague at best, but it was something. Alfred was withholding detail, keeping it bare minimum news, but pushing him on the _why_ wouldn’t get them anywhere. Deductive reasoning pointed to the family’s wariness of their interactions, the way most of his and Jason’s conversations operate. They were being protective; Jason was skittish in these halls, prone to bolt, and Bruce bitterly knew that he didn’t have to think hard about why.

The quiet of the house was disturbed by the faint sound of glass shattering, and an even more muffled voice to follow. Both Alfred and Bruce turned their attention abruptly to the door, and Bruce swears Alfred looks about ten years older for a moment.

“Please excuse me, Master Bruce.”

His pace is brisk as he exits the master bedroom, apron fluttering at his knees as he starts down the halls.

Bruce does not touch the tray at the left of his bed, instead straining to make out the exchange of words as Alfred makes his way to what he assumes is the kitchen.

“Master Jason, you are not fit to be out of bed right now—“

“It’s fine, Alf, I just wanted—“

“You are _sick,_ and you still have _stitches._ If you need something, I implore you to call for it.”

“But you’re busy!” The way Jason’s voice wavered sounded rough, like he was making an effort to bat away a cough. “I can get it, don’t worry.”

“I am certain you can, judging by the _glass_ across the floor — come, I’ll help you back to your room.”

Bruce feels a pang of something akin to homesickness, hearing the stern insistence in Alfred’s voice and Jason’s lackluster attempts at placating the butler. It had been so long since he had heard Jason’s voice inside these walls, even longer that he’d heard it without a guarded touch of  resentment he reserved only for discussions with Bruce.

Against better judgement, primarily found in the way his body protested, Bruce shifts his legs over the side of the bed and reaches for his crutches. He wanted to see him — _really_ see him, not stare at Leslie’s medical documentation or listen to basic descriptors of _fine_ and _healing_ second-handedly. Because the last time he had seen the boy, he was drowning in his own blood, fighting to breathe against metal through his stomach. Speaking wearily of being home. Drifting to unconsciousness. Dying.

It takes him three wide half-steps to reach the door, the bickering more one-sided now as Jason’s protests go largely ignored.

“I believe this is called _smothering,_ Alfred,” He complains.

“Then I suppose I would find myself appalled at what you consider _adequate_ care, Master Jason.”

They grow closer, and Bruce pauses, leaning mostly on the crutch that doesn’t agitate his shoulder. Jason appears first, hopping on his good leg, tucked securely next to Alfred by the old man’s arm, and Bruce gets a good look at him in the two seconds it takes for Jason to look up and see him standing there.

The boy’s hair’s gotten longer, a little shaggier than he last saw it, and his cheekbones were a little more pronounced – whether it was the sickness or the events prior that hollowed him out, Bruce couldn’t tell. A red quarter-sleeve and grey sweats down the cast covered his muscle loss, some places fitting him and some places of fabric hanging when they shouldn’t. Bruising, faded now, still crept out from beneath the collar of the shirt. Jason had something akin to amusement behind his eyes, ruffling Alfred’s feathers as he had, but it dies when he meets Bruce’s gaze.  His posture straightens, his grip on Alfred’s shoulder tightening. Defensive, Bruce realizes.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred speaks in a tone that usually was only held for his most final strands of patience; a warning. It was early in the morning and the butler was already at the end of his tether for what he would and would not put up with, even from the head of the household. “Please return and eat your breakfast.”

“I didn’t know if you needed help,” Bruce replies, which sounds uncharacteristically stupid, given the way he leans on his crutch. It was an impulsive excuse, a product of a mind gone abnormally blank when he didn’t know how to formulate his proper reaction into words. Batman _always_ had plans. Always had contingencies, backups to backups, but his track record with dealing with issues that were not related directly to his war on crime proved… complicated. It threw him off, always made him uncomfortable. Especially with Jason standing mere feet from him, looking like he couldn’t decide whether fight or flight was the better option.

The silence was suspended for a moment and passed when Bruce didn’t find anything extra to say. The will had gone out of him, the moment ended. Jason didn’t look like he was going to make an effort to say anything either, appearing to be just at odds with the situation as Bruce. (Did he remember? Does he know what was said in the rubble, what he had called the Manor?)

“Rest assured sir, we shall manage.” Alfred cuts in, and taps Jason’s hand as a signal to get moving again. Jason starts and his gaze moves to the hallway around the corner, hopping steadily on his good leg in a way that suggests his reluctance to use crutches had been commonplace. Bruce doesn’t move.

It clicks. It has _always_ clicked, really, ever since the first few dodgy answers, but his instinctual paternal denial overrode his calculated logic. Bruce knew it wasn’t _him_ they were protecting by keeping the two separated. Jason had the means to go anywhere, do anything at the drop of a hat, and the determination to do it too if he felt threatened — Dr. Thompkins’ orders be damned. It was Bruce's turf he was on now, in his house, subject to his rules. The family wasn’t walking on eggshells to preserve Bruce’s peace; he held the cards here. Jason was liable to bolt at any time; they were doing their best to keep him around. 

As Bruce stands, watching them depart for the guest wing, he doesn't miss Jason's fleeting glance just before they disappear around the corner. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to have this finished a whole lot sooner but I had some life changes. Going through some things. Sometimes it be like that. 
> 
> I'm not real thrilled with how I ended this, but I fought and fought to figure out something, and deleted out about 2k worth of another section, so just screw it and y'all will get a (hopefully) better chapter. But hey! Bruce and Jason saw each other! So there's that!  
> I plan on focusing a little more on the Batboy/fam side of things too, it's feeling a little neglected. So if you like bickering siblings and costumes, tune in next time. 
> 
> Also, if anyone's wondering what kind of continuity I'm following, I'm tapping out at RHATO #25/Annual #2. Instinctually I denied that as something that would happen but I think it'll be more fun to confront that instead of ignoring it. Sue me. But after that, it's all my concoction of shit. And Roy's still alive, because fuck HiC too. You might see him come and go too.
> 
> My twitter/tumblr is havenesc.


	5. mind over matter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. 
> 
> sorry for the delay my dudes. there’s been a lot that’s happened in my life since the update of this. battling very severe depression and making really painful but necessary decisions for my life kinda beats you with a stick. and then i ACTUALLY got beat with a stick, cause back in july i cracked a few ribs getting thrown through a wooden fence a la pony. so i feel jay’s pain.
> 
> listen. this is unbeta’d, you know the drill, but i promise i’ve not been abandoning this fic. in fact i have been writing it a couple sentences at a time on my phone usually before work or in between classes at the moment. and also i’m writing this for me and my own catharsis atm. so i’m sorry if this isn’t what you guys want to read. But. ily. and thanks if you still enjoy my unblessed mess.

It’s not panic, not really. Not even anger — which is surprising, because that’s the one emotion that comes to Jason naturally where Bruce is concerned. Jason had expected it to go that way; his response was so honed to the point of being Pavlovian that he had expected anger, maybe even be irritated by the sight of Bruce, but there had only been confusion. Like Bruce was staring at him like he’d never seen him before, like he’d never see him again.

It threw Jason off. He didn’t know how to do this new dance; it was so much easier to be snarky and shitty. The silence was awkward and for him to instigate something wouldn’t be right, not with the both of them so beat to hell and back. Jason’s state of affairs meant he couldn’t raise his voice above a certain volume else his cough would start in.

“That was something,” Jason said to Alfred, breaking away as they crossed the threshold to his room to hobble to the edge of his mattress. The butler had far of enough of his antics, polite but stiff in his movements – which meant he’d stepped on a few toes, he’d have to apologize for that later – and turned Jason’s pillows. “You don’t think he’s got _amnesia,_ do you?”

“I dare say you both might be the death of me, if not yourselves, Master Jason,” Alfred replies curtly. Jason has the bare minimum of decency to look a little ashamed, but not so much that he could stop his shoulders from shrugging.

“I have a knack for that.”

The gallows humor was spent on a bad audience. Alfred did not engage as he donned a stethoscope, huffing in the ever-formal, ever-resigned way he tended to do when one of the family members had tested the strength of his training. Despite his annoyance, the hand he rested on Jason’s shoulder was gentle as he laid the diaphragm on Jason’s back, mindful of where the stitching sat beneath the cotton fabric of his shirt.

Jason complied without protest, the only sign of his discomfort manifesting in the way he clenched his jaw as he breathed in. The time in the Manor had seen a lot of progress in his injuries, but you don’t exactly go bouncing back around on the rooftops of cityscapes after suffering the kind of damage to your organs like he had. _You might be stuck with some long-lasting effects,_ Leslie warned him during on of her visits, but he had taken it with a grain of salt. He usually did when it came to things regarding his own health – call him a cynic, but he was supposed to be a lot of things. Dead, for instance, sat at the top of that list, yet here he sat, very much not.

“Sounding a little better than yesterday,” Alfred says, seeming satisfied with Jason’s cooperation. “How were your injuries feeling _before_ you decided to take the long journey to the kitchen, Master Jason?”

“Better than ever,” Jason replies, carefully using his good hand and leg to maneuver himself back up against the pillows. “I’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

Not entirely true, but not entirely a lie, either. Already he was sore from his little excursion, symbol of independence that he was, but nothing busted open and his wet cough wasn’t getting worse. The moment he got even an equivalent of “ _eh, alright_ ” from Leslie, he was gone, anyways. It was all temporary, after all; with Bruce in the house he’d probably overstay his welcome by the end of the week. _If_ that.

He’d have to lay low for a little while, maybe duck out of Gotham so it would make it harder for his siblings to hunt for him. It had been a while since the Outlaws’ HQ had disintegrated, died – no, not died, he and Artemis are out there somewhere – with Bizarro, but he had established a few hiding spots on the outskirts of the city so far.

His war with Bates wasn’t finished, though. Bat or no bat, regardless of how it all turned out, the guy was a dead man.

“Only when you are good and ready for it,” Alfred retorts. “However, I implore that you merely _ask_ for me to fetch you something should you need it. Your health will not improve if you continue to push yourself, and I do not believe I would make a nice _warden._ ”

That was about as close to “Stop making my job harder, you asshat,” as Alfred-speak could get. Jason two-finger saluted in resignation.

“Cross my heart I’ll be a good patient. Go babysit the big man.”

Briefly, a memory flits across his mind, recalling a time when it was just the three of them in the manor and a fight with Clayface had landed Bruce with three busted ribs. He remembered a much more _resilient_ Bruce then, too, who Alfred struggled to keep at home (it didn’t work) and all the snide moments of passive-aggressiveness in the weeks to follow (none of that worked either). It was refreshing, kind of, if you’re a smartass, to hear and see Alfred’s patience be perpetually tested by the Bat.

Some things just never change at all.

It took them less than a minute to get to the rooftop of GCPD. Long enough for Jim Gordon to light his pipe, short enough for him to nearly choke on the long puff he took as the flutter of Batman’s cape interfered with the signal’s light. Damn Bat — he could never feel him coming, could never anticipate just when he’d show. He was there and then he wasn’t, dependable in his work all the same, but Gordon really, _really_ wish he’d just for _once_ slip up and make noise like a _normal_ person.

 

It was an awful night, really. The wind was turning chilly and the clouds above loomed, promising heavy rain. Thunder rolled in the distance over the skyscrapers, a sound that was as second nature to Gotham above as the honk of impatient taxi drivers below. The commissioner wasn’t thrilled about being up on the rooftop just before a nasty bout of weather like this, but at least the Wayne Corp building would act like a lightning rod well before he ever did.

 

“That was fast,” Gordon said, clearing his throat and tapping at his pipe. “Were you waiting for it to come on?”

 

“I was on a patrol route close by,” Batman replied, refusing to engage in Gordon’s dry sarcasm as always. He paused, seeming to resist the urge to look behind him. “ _We_ were on patrol.”

 

Jim frowned. “ _We?_ ”

 

Not a moment too soon came the fluttering of the stark red, yellow, and green triage of color as the Boy Wonder swooped up onto the rooftop. He was good, sure in his movements, but it didn’t stop the few steps he had to take to balance his landing as he disengaged his grapple. Robin. Jim looked him up and down.

 

A _new_ Robin.

 

So much for no more work with kids. Robin looked  like he was ready to size Jim up, but the man’s hand held out to him seemed to throw it off.

 

“Nice to meet you, son. I mean, _again.”_ Jim squints behind his glasses as if trying to remember. “Though I thought you were taller.”

 

Robin takes his hand — firm handshake. He looks amused at best. “Yeah, well, I thought you were younger.”

 

Jim looked at Batman quizzically. “A word?”

 

Batman concedes and Jim leads him a few feet to the wayside, far enough from the boy that he’d at least have trouble picking up the full jist of the conversation (he knows a _Robin_ is a colorful shadow of the Dark Knight; a copy in technique, eager to overhear any information). When Jim speaks again his voice is low, head tilted towards the Bat.

 

“I thought you said you weren’t going to work with children anymore.”

 

The last Robin had grown, hardly a child anymore — but Batman had been so insistent on the finality of the role that Jim didn’t think he’d ever see the flash of red and green again.  Part of Gordon was thankful for it; for the record, despite all of Batman’s help and their — friendship? Partnership? Whatever it was — he still found it concerning that not only did the vigilante fight hardened criminals, he brought along _kids_ to help. Not always, not since the last lad had gotten older, but it made him nervous.  

 

Batman didn’t seem phased by Jim’s subtle criticism. “He’s older beyond his years. Older than _both_ of us – tougher.”

 

Jason never did admit to the swell of pride he felt when he had heard those words long ago. The boy was staring down at the busy night traffic of Gotham, his hair ruffled by the updraft, pretending he couldn’t hear every word being said. He thinks – _knows_ – that Bruce was aware of his eavesdropping. He was trained well.

 

And just like that, it pulled Jason out of the moment. He wasn’t Robin but he was looking _at_ him, standing in the distance between the bird and the bat, replaying the memory. A dream.

 

In three seconds Jason’s awake again, eyes fluttering open to stare up into the dark nothingness of his bedroom.

 

Sometimes that happened. Memories of his time as Robin would resurface, reminding him of years passed, a gentle touch-and-go of things that had no reason to be at the back of his mind but lingered there anyways. It wasn’t always the crowbar, the laughs, the leering grin; it wasn’t always fighting about their rules or disobeying orders with Batman. Sometimes it was just the ghost of a partnership, a memorial of what had been.

 

It wasn’t _all_ bad. He would confess that to himself, if to no one else.

 

A quick check of his phone said it was just a little after one in the morning. The family’s patrol would still be in full swing. Dick was back in Blüd for the next two days, catching up on his duties with Nightwing, which meant the kids were running loose across the rooftops. ( _Almost_ kids. Tim was what – almost 20? _Already_ 20? Jesus Christ.)

 

It becomes pretty quickly apparent that he’s not going to go back to bed. His chest has a dull throb to it, too minor for painkillers but enough to be annoying. Sleeping most of the day meant he was pretty ready to be up for a few hours, and his usually nocturnal schedule came like muscle memory. Closing his eyes did jack; he was awake for the long haul.

 

Maybe Alfred wouldn’t object so much if he at least _brought_ the crutches along with him.

 

 

* * *

 

Patrol was always a way to clear Tim’s head, even if it was busy. It was a constant, a way to get above street level sounds and feel the wind at his cheekbones. It got the adrenaline pumping, too, and sometimes the haphazard serenity of the rooftops couldn’t be beat when there was a lot of steam to blow off and a lot of mooks to knock out. Red Robin – and before that, _Robin_ — had been doing this for so long that it was just second nature. It was a way to focus on the tasks at hand instead of everything else going on in his life. Hell, even if patrol went sideways, it was a whole lot nicer to fix _that_ than whatever waited for him at _home._

“On your right!” Spoiler called to him, and Tim narrowly dodged the downswing of a baseball bat forceful enough to hear the whistle of it. He grunted, electing to headbutt the current dealer he was grappling with — can’t they all just _wait their turn?_ — and twisted to land a kick at the bat-wielding assailant. Both men fell away from him with resounding notes of pain, clutching at their injuries.

 

“Shouldn’tve been bad guys,” Red Robin said quickly, ducking as he saw a fist coming from his peripheral.

 

“Nice night for a fight!” Spoiler sounded unbothered as she slammed her knee into the solar plexus of her own dancing partner. Just another Friday night, just another band of roving muscle hired on for a drop off.

 

Ironically, said roving band was probably one of the bigger highlights of their evening. They threw mean punches and sometimes were quick enough to get a good hit in (Tim knew he’d have a shiner on his cheek in the morning) but they were mostly power in numbers rather than skill. Nothing _really_ big had really gave the family a run for their money. No Arkham jailbreaks, no metahumans, no fear toxins or laughing gas or anything that would call for all hands on deck. Which makes them _lucky,_ in Tim’s opinion. They didn’t need any extra work cut out for them.

 

On the other upswing of the pendulum came the anxiety. Tim was sure that this Bates guy had _something_ to do with it. Jason had given them the story that the guy was just a big drug runner when he alluded to needing help with the case. Tim knew people were dying from a drug that he produced as well. Maybe it _was_ all coincidence. Sure. Bates was elusive at best. For all of Tim’s claims to fame for his detective work, the big wig mule had been clever enough to hide his wrongdoings, and if they were exposed, any proof to snatch up would be minor offenses. Jason was on to something; had been for months, by the looks of it, and Tim feels himself scowl. (Jason’s supposed to be able to _trust_ him.)

 

Spoiler put some real weight into a punch just off to Robin’s left, the hit landing so hard the guy was unconscious well before he hit the ground. He watched her as she rebalanced herself, hands on her hips, then dusted them off as the quiet slowly rolled back over them. “Losers.”

 

Tim clicked his tongue in amusement and shook his head. It was like clockwork. The small timers picked wrong places, wrong times, Gotham’s family of vigilantes squandered their ever-fiendish plans, and then it took almost longer to drag the dead-weight bodies together and cuff them for police than it did to knock them out in the first place. Tim sends out a ping for the location to the GCPD’s home dispatch.

 

“What next, then?” Steph asks, pulling her grapple gun from her belt. There was always something weirdly charming about how they could carry on  normal conversations in almost any situation. Batman’s training seemed to have that effect on most of the family (ironic, really, considering getting the man to talk on patrol is a more impressive stunt than pulling teeth). Moreover, it was just a _them_ thing. They both grapple up to the rooftop with ease.

 

 “Think we should call it? I’m just about bored. And that twenty-four hour diner on the corner smells good.”

 

Tim considers it — he’s hungry, too, and he was pretty sure in his rookie days that he and Bruce had actually _been_ to that one. They gave them free pancakes. The night was as quiet as Gotham ever got, which for all the sounds of traffic and life on the streets far below, it was comforting. Red Robin rolls his neck. “Yeah, alright.”

 

Thirty minutes later and they’re both perched on a roof, legs dangling over the edge as they sit with styrofoam to-go containers in their laps. Tim doesn’t even pretend to be sour when Steph steals yet _another_ of his fries despite her own plentiful box of a burger-fry combo only being half-devoured. In fact, he’s not saying much at all — beyond the noncommittal sounds of agreement or, “Yeah?”s, in response to Stephanie’s storytelling, his gaze and mind have wandered.

 

It all comes back when he feels something wet smack against his nose and he startles, suddenly struck by the smell of ketchup.  Steph pokes his cheek with the reddened fry, amused rather than irritated at his inattention.

 

“Earth to Boy Wonder.”

 

She holds up the fry and Tim bites it, pulling it from her fingers. Steph at least has the decency to dab at his ketchup-spattered nose as he collects himself, jumpstarted back to life by her harassment.

 

Steph tilts her head. “Where’d you go?”

 

Tim pauses for a moment as he chews, trying to really articulate what he was thinking. He shrugs. “Nothing too serious.”

 

“You just sat there for _ten minutes_ not hearing a word I said,” Steph replied, arching her brow. Her voice wasn’t unkind, though. “It had _better_ be something serious.”

 

It makes Tim chuckle — for all her piss and vinegar, she knew him well, and she had a big heart. It was well-intentioned.

 

“I just — I don’t know. Things have been so crazy lately.” Steph watches as Tim’s gaze drops down to the food in his lap, appetite gone. “ _J—Red Hood’s_ home, which is weird. His and B’s relationship is… well, not a pretty sight when it’s on the rocks. Last time they had a fight Arsenal had to step in.”

 

They hadn’t even been on great terms before the stakeout, either. Jason’s not great at maintaining relationships even when he _wants_ to, and after Bruce had done what he had done (much to the criticisms of Tim and the others) Jay cut them off. Cut _all_ of them off — just when Tim thought he might have found traces of where Jason had been, all that waited for him were remnants of anger and hurt and signs of a ghost. He only came back when people started dying on Gotham streets and he had a lead — a guaranteed upper hand on Bruce.

 

“I don’t think I _ever_ got his full story, for the record,” Steph says. “But I know you guys have had a not-so-great relationship. Nobody’s mentioned much about him to me directly within the family. He’s looked out for me and Batgirl a few times, though.”

 

Tim winces. Jason’s death was Tim’s introduction as Robin; it was a long, unfortunate story that he’s never been super certain Jason’s gotten over. Not that Tim can blame him when the memory of being ousted as Robin by the feral child still pulls at him every now and then.

 

“If I wasn’t following Batman and Robin like I was back then I wouldn’t know much either. B and Nightwing don’t like remembering it. Jay’s… complicated. There’s a lot of stuff that wasn’t his fault. He and B would probably get along a whole lot better if they compromised on a lot of stuff.”

 

“Batman? _Compromise?_ ” Stephanie tries to keep the laugh contained but she giggles through her glove. “Sorry, but. Seems like he’d be better off arguing with a pet rock.”

 

“He basically does, most of the time.” Tim replied. “But Batman _can_ do it. He let Red Hood back into Gotham to investigate, for one thing. And joined in on the Bates investigation too, like it was a family matter.”

 

Steph tilts her head. “Are you worried about that, too?”

 

Tim’s frown deepens and he closes his to-go box definitively, unsettled as he places it off to the empty space on his left. “I’m still trying to figure out how whatever Bates is supplying on the local circuit is killing people. He’s more slippery than a greased eel, too. There’s something going on here, and I feel like I’ve been chasing him in circles the last few weeks.”

 

He doesn’t even realize how animated he had become until Steph catches his hand that got too close to her face and stole it with both her hands, threading her fingers through his as she kept it stowed in her lap. “Easy there.”

 

“Sorry. I’m just venting.” Tim says, feeling sheepish. “Not trying to knock you off the roof.”

 

“That’s okay,” Steph replied, squeezing his hand. “At least this way if you do, we both go together.”

 

Charming.

 

“The whole situation is just…surreal. I don’t think anybody in the family really knows what to do.”

 

“Well maybe it’s a good thing.” Steph says. “I of all people know family’s complicated. Family can _suck._ But maybe this is like, a good way to fix things.”

 

_Fix things,_ Tim thinks, _Yeah. Because Bruce and Jason are experts at playing nice and getting closure._

 

The optimism in Steph is different, but not unwelcome. He knows what bad familial relationships have done to her; not that the family of Bats has ever necessarily been “functional,” but he could understand if she was tired of family dramatics. Maybe a little positive outlook that didn’t come from Alfred or a very weary Dick would be beneficial to all of them.

 

Jason, for all his flaws, was still his brother. A good one. It would be nice to keep him around.

 

“Yeah. Maybe.” Tim knows it probably sounds lame, but it’s the best he’s got.

 

Steph gently puts a hand on his cheek and guides him to look away from the Gotham street below and at her instead. It was a relief, in a weird sort of way. Not to say finding comfort in those blue eyes was _weird_ , but Tim’s mind didn’t really stop running for many reasons. It was more of a shock than not when there was a lapse in his head, when he felt a sense of calm. Steph’s reassuring look was a lull in the traffic, quiet music to merge with the sounds of the city. Tim finds himself letting the weight of his chin fall into her hand.

Stephanie leans into him just as both of their comms crackle to life, startling the both of them into alertness.

 

“Don’t tell me that’s _all_ you guys actually do on patrol.”

 

Tim feels his cheeks redden beneath his domino mask. “Red Hood,” He says, trying to not sound overly alarmed, “I didn’t think you were allowed to be on duty tonight.”

 

“Worried?” (Guess it didn’t work.) “Nah, I’m not up and running around. The Batcave’s a nice change of scenery, though.”

 

Stephanie and Tim exchange a look. “The Batcave….which happens to be _full_ of nesting bats?” Steph asks.

 

“Agent P keeps it tidy. Consider me not worried.”

 

“Of course you aren’t,” Tim snarks back, but it wasn’t unfriendly. He could see Jason, casted leg propped up on the control panel, swiveling in the chair as much as his chest would allow. “I’m guessing he doesn’t know you’re playing Bat.”

 

“Not funny, and _no,_ he doesn’t.”

 

Steph and Tim glances at the red and blue lights rebounding off the streets below; cops were here for pickup duty. Time to go. They both stand up, retreating further into the shadows of the blacktop roof just to be safe. Steph squeezes Tim’s hand and brings her free hand up to her comm.

 

“We’re the last ones to finish up, but tonight’s a drag. There hasn’t been anything other than small-timers out and about.”

 

“Doesn’t sound like it’s been a new phenomenon,” Jason muses.

 

“Nope. But we’ll fill you in later. Spoiler and Red Robin out.”

 

The line goes quiet and the two young vigilantes bask in the silence for a second. Beneath her own mask, Stephanie’s cheeks pinch up in a way that Tim knows is a smile underneath the cover.

 

“I think the family will be okay.”

 

 

* * *

 

Jason’s still in the Batcave when they arrive, struggling to fiddle the knob on a microscope in the lab as the Redbird’s engine purrs up the drive. He only resurfaces when he hears the car doors open and shut, and Tim’s quizzical voice soon after.

 

“What are you looking at?”

 

“Running analysis on some of the components of the drug Bates is using,” Jason responds. “The Batcomputer is running some other tests for me, but I wanted to see if the compounds changed for myself.”

 

“We already ran tests on it, Jay.” Tim reaches over and tunes one of the lenses for Jason when his cast got in the way. “We didn’t see anything abnormal.”

 

“I feel like I should mention that it _is_ three-thirty,” Stephanie says, tapping a nonexistent watch on her wrist as she approaches the lab table. She drops a heavy-sounding to-go box on the table. “I know we’re all nocturnal, but — I _seriously_ don’t think you’d find anything new at a time like this. I’m gonna be glad to just get back home.”

 

“Just crash here,” Tim says off to Jason’s right. “You don’t have class until the afternoon.”

 

“Don’t have to convince _me,_ ” Steph replies, the fatigue starting to edge its way into her voice. She shakes her hair out of her costume’s hood, pats Tim on the shoulder, and makes her departure for the stairs with a farewell “Goodnight.”

 

Tim returns the goodbye but says nothing else as he looms over Jason’s shoulder — waiting, the elder presumes, for the confirmation that Steph had left them alone. _Better not be an interrogation,_ Jason thinks. Tim doesn’t hang around after patrol just to help Jay with his handicaps.

 

“ _…_ So. _Have_ you found anything?” Tim asks innocently enough after a beat. Jason lifts his head from the microscope, coughing a bit as he settles back in his chair. He’s got a good poker face, sure, but the discomfort is written in the lines of his mouth. Tim doesn’t say anything about it.

 

“Not that the batcomputer hasn’t seen so far. All the autopsies say the same thing — the blood slowly coagulated after passing through the heart valves. Cardiac arrest. But that’s —“

 

“Seen in snake bites,” Tim finishes for him. “Like rattlesnakes or vipers.”

 

Jason nods. “Problem with it is that there’s no compounds that suggest viper venom. Or _any_ type of coagulating properties.”

 

Tim reads the computer’s findings as they scroll up the screen, scrunching his brow and tapping his chin. It wasn’t like they hadn’t encountered new drugs before. Gotham City ran rife with gangs and drug rings and criminal activity; you didn’t make your money in these circles by reintroducing the same classics. People were always on the hunt for something new and marketable. They were all lethal, in some way or another. But never this rapid.

 

Bates was a rat bastard if they ever knew one, slippery as an eel. The man hid his finances in layers; Tim and Babs had been working to uncross the wires, to pull common names from the hat that might be a viable alias. The family had been ready to start going after Black Mask or Two-Faces’ operations when Jason had dropped in, determined and sure about the new goon on the block.

 

“How even _did_ you find out about this guy?” Tim muses out loud, leaning forward to get a good look at the cells beneath the microscope himself. Jason acquiesces and rolls back to give him space.

 

“I don’t work the circles you guys do, Timbit.” Jason says it with an edge of bitterness to it. He’s taken enough heads and worked the circuits enough to know when someone knew was stepping onto Gotham’s turf, ready to carve out a space that didn’t exist. “Not hard to see when someone doesn’t belong in the city.”

 

He guesses that’s true. Tim squints as he stares down the lens, trying to keep himself from being uneasy. He couldn’t help it; their history was rocky, even if it seemed to be one of Jason’s more positive relationships within the family. The two were polar opposite. Always had been. One street kid, one silver spoon. There would always be something about the criminal underbelly of Gotham that Jason would understand better than any of them did.

 

“I’ll try to see if Barbara has any idea who might be able to help us in the morning,” Tim says, frowning when Jason coughs again. “We should probably get you back upstairs.”

 

“I’m fine,” Jason argues, but the overexertion is written all over.

 

 He’d done too much, that was clear. Tim gets it — in fact, he doesn’t think there’s a single member of the family that doesn’t. Bruce had a way of forging himself in iron and Tim knew how easy it was to think of himself as just that strong too. The Robins _had_ to be. They were the counterpart to Batman.

 

But Batman was down and Jason wasn’t a Robin anymore.

 

“You look tired.”

 

Tim says it quietly, as if speaking too loud would alert everyone in the house. It wasn’t a question. Jason looked tired, sitting there in the chair, holding his temple. The way his shirt hung loose but still swelled slightly with the bandages taped to the top of his abdomen. His casts on his limbs and his crutches still left across the way at the computer. Jason looks tired, but more than that — it was a _heavy_ kind of tired. The kind of tired only felt after a hard patrol, after a family fight, after the first night recovering from fear toxin.

 

Was it the Manor? The cave? Them? Tim meets Jason’s eyes as he speaks, careful to only touch Jason’s cage, not rattle it. It wasn’t an aggressive statement. Of all the members of the family, Jason seemed to hate him the least. Sue him if he wasn’t willing to use it for good reasons.

 

Tim’s not surprised when Jason glances at him and, with a shrug, repeats “I’m fine.”

 

Of course he is. Tim doesn’t push the issue. Instead he strips off his gloves and puts them on the table. “Just making sure.”

 

Jason makes a noncommittal sound of acknowledgement and Tim takes it as a cue for him to leave the second-eldest be. Post-patrol is always a methodic routine, steady as the hands on a clock. Tim showers, changes into the comfortable sweats Alfred usually leaves if he’s the last one on patrol, and the coffee pot is at the ready upstairs. The clock on the microwave reads 3:47am, and Tim spends his first few slow sips browsing Wayne Industries work emails on his phone.

 

When the clock reads 4:19am -- his coffee lukewarm, his attention zoned to scrolling and then snapping back to reality – he realizes there’s not been any indication that Jason’s come up. (Did he find a way into the cave that won’t trip Alfred’s senses? Not likely, but Jason’s a crafty bastard.)

 

Tim pours himself a warmup and makes his way back down to the Cave, frowning when he sees that Jason hasn’t moved from the spot he left him in. Jay’s back was turned away from him, chair obscuring the elder brother save for the bulge of his cast and the crutches leaning against the lab table. Tim knows the behaviors of obsession.

 

“Jay, you’re not on a schedule. Go to bed,” Tim says, padding over with a voice that he only hopes sounds stern rather than humorous. He’s never been the big authority figure around here. “All of this will be here tomorrow. It’s almost four-thirty and Alfred _might_ actually sic Dr. Thompkins on you if he finds you.”

 

There’s no immediate answer. Tim tilts his head around the chair’s wide frame.

 

Jason’s head is propped up by his right hand, resting his elbow on the armrest of the chair. Tim hears the slight wheeze as Jay’s chest rises and falls, mouth slightly open and eyes closed. With his face at ease, the darker circles under his eyes look a little more prominent, a little more harrowing. Tim watches his eyelashes move, brow twitching. Must be a dream.

 

Not for the first time, Tim thinks of how good Jason is at hiding things.

 

“Hey.” No response. “ _Hey,_ Jason.”

Tim frowns. If he were anything like Damian, he’d have flicked his older brother on the forehead.

 

Thankfully, Tim likes to believe he has a _little_ more self-preservation than that.

 

“ _Jason._ ” He says it as loud as he dares, rattling the back of the chair a little bit. His voice bounces in the cave’s walls; Jason wakes with a start, his eyes flying open. There’s a hiss as Jason grits his teeth when he sits up too fast.

 

“You alright?” Tim asks, alarmed, but Jason just grunts and waves him off as he carefully breathes in. It takes three long, deliberately slow breaths for his body to relax again. Tim knows that pain, feels the ghost of it pull at his own ribs, and doesn’t envy his brother one bit. After a beat, Jason brings his hand up to rub at his face.

 

“What time is it?”

 

“Almost four-thirty.”

 

“Shit.” Jason lets his head fall back against the chair, looking resigned. “I need to get back upstairs.”

 

“You’re telling me,” Tim snorts. “Did you find anything new?”

 

“Computer’s running a lengthened diagnostic. I think I found something we missed in the bonds. I just input specific conditions on it to see if we get a new trigger response, but…” _I fell asleep._ He won’t admit it.

 

“I’ll look after it,” Tim says, grabbing a crutch and handing it to Jay. “Let’s get you back up there. Alfred’s not going to be happy if he gets up and finds you missing.”

 

“Yeah, well.” Jason takes the crutch, and Tim ducks under Jason’s arm to help him stand. “Wouldn’t be the first time I disappointed him.”

 

He must have seen the look of dismay on Tim’s face, because he clenches his arm around Tim’s shoulders and shakes him a little. “I’m _kidding,_ Tim, Jesus Christ. Let me have my dry humor every once in a while.”

 

The tone doesn’t land quite right and Tim knows it’s a deflection, but he doesn’t argue, just shakes his head and starts dragging Jay along with him. “Didn’t you hear about the time I tried to be nice and wash his cast iron skillet?”

 

Jason sucked in a breath. “You did not.”

 

“Oh, I did. Banned from helping for like three months. I think he’s still a little sore about it.” Tim glances at Jason from his peripheral. “But he still loves all of us.”

 

Jason shakes his head. “That poor old man.”

 

They walk on.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _This is Vicki Vale, here with Wayne Industries board member, Timothy Drake.”_

 

The TV is on low volume in the kitchen as Bruce sits at the table, stiff but at far more ease to be anywhere not in relation to his living quarters. Alfred hums a tune over the sound of eggs frying in the pan, preparing breakfast. The sun filters through the large windows of the estate, and the gardens visible from the table are layered over with fresh snow from the night before.

 

Bruce sips his coffee and watches Tim sit easy with his legs crossed in the chair next to Vicki. The redheaded woman leans closer to Tim, looking inquisitive for the camera.

 

“ _Sources say that Bruce Wayne is back on his feet,_ ” Vicki says. “ _It’s been a few weeks since his terrible accident. Will he be resuming his position at the head of Wayne Industries? Is this true?_ ”

 

Tim’s smile is polite. “ _Considering_ I’m _the source, of course it’s true._ ”

 

“Cheeky lad,” Alfred guffaws over his eggs, and Bruce feels the corner of his mouth turn up.

 

“ _He’s had a lot of setbacks, but right now his health is steadily improving. It’s not the first time he’s been the victim of something like this. It’s not going to stop him from doing the best he can._ ”

 

“ _Yes, your family_ has _been the subject of poor misfortune,_ ” Vicki says, and Tim chuckles. It’s all a game, a dance, a show. Vicki’s basically circling him, looking to see what information she can get out. Journalism doesn’t stop – but Tim’s good at PR. He knows how to handle himself.

 

“Your breakfast, Master Bruce,” Alfred says, placing a hearty plate before the man. “A refill for your coffee?”

 

“Yes. Thank you, Alfred.”

 

“Always, sir.”

 

Alfred fills his cup and returns to the stovetop, cracking three more eggs over the pan. Vicki is pressing Tim for more information, grimy details, but the young man merely smiles and navigates the choppy waters.

 

“Master Dick sent a message this morning. He will be in late tonight.”

 

“Tell him not to worry about patrol.” Bruce replies, cutting his fork into his food as the interview breaks for commercial. “I don’t want him to run himself ragged.”

 

“Understood.”

 

The rest of the children were out of the house already, most of them at school. Tim had volunteered himself to do the interview with Vicki; it was Bruce’s first day back in the office and he was only working in the afternoon for a few hours, but Tim had been rather determined to keep it low-stress. (Vicki Vale was anything but what Bruce would consider _high stress,_ necessarily – if anything, simply incessant – but if it let him return to some sense of normalcy to let Tim take the reins, so be it. He wouldn’t object.)

 

 

“Is there anything else I should know for today, Alfred?” Bruce absently brings his mug up to his lips and is quickly (sternly) reminded that it’s still piping. The eggs are good, his bacon is exactly the way he likes it; it felt good to just sit in the kitchen.

 

“Nothing in particular, I don’t believe,” Alfred says, but after a thought, “Master Damian is bringing Master Jon over for a few hours after school to work on a project.”

 

 Bruce hums in acknowledgement. Dick was arriving back in Gotham, Damian had company, Stephanie would undoubtedly be over to work on her own assignments. Cassandra had returned to Hong Kong to tie up some ends she had dropped when the accident had occurred. Things were settling back to normal. It wasn’t like it was a surprising thing, near-death experiences. They didn’t happen all the time, but it ran in their line of work. Sometimes someone got hurt. You learn to roll with the punches – literal and metaphorical alike.

 

A click against the tile disrupted the cliché sounds of the TV and Alfred’s morning routine and Bruce swiveled his head towards the source. Jason stood in the door frame of the kitchen.

 

“Good morning, Master Jason,” Alfred said, flipping a pancake. Bless the man – he never missed a beat. “You look like you have a little more color to you today.”

 

It was almost ironic. The disheveled pallor of Jason’s face made him look tired. Bruce had heard him coughing some nights, loud enough to seep into the hall and make him clear his own throat out of sympathy. He stood like he knew he was a sore thumb, awkward and stiff as he leaned on the crutch tucked beneath his arm; a cotton long sleeve hung off him and sweats were rolled over his leg cast almost comically. It was painfully obvious he hadn’t exactly expected for Bruce to be up and around the manor either.

 

Jason clears his throat. “Yeah, well, I’ve looked worse.”

 

“Feel better?”

 

“Getting there.”

 

He still hadn’t moved from the doorway. The interview was back on TV, and Vicki was quizzing Tim on the next Wayne Industries’ fundraiser gala.

 

It’s nostalgic. That’s what it is. It’s discolored, distorted by age and by the nature of their history, but it’s nostalgia that twinges in Bruce’s gut all the same.

 

“What would you like on your plate, Master Jason?” Alfred asks. If he feels anything in the air he selectively chooses to ignore it, to power on and pretend to be oblivious. Like this is just another normal day.

 

If Bruce blinks he sees curled dark hair a foot shorter than where Jason stands. School books tucked under a sweater, not crutches beneath a Henley. A mischievous smile – not a face that looked like it was seeing a ghost.

 

“I – whatever’s fine, Alf, you know I’ll eat it.” Jason jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “I can just have it brought back to my room.”

 

“No,” Bruce says, and both men turn to look at him. He shakes his head. “It’s alright. You came all this way down.”

 

He can’t tell if Jason wanted to hear it or was dreading getting an offer. “If you want,” He adds.

 

Jason hesitates, sharing a glance with Alfred as if requesting some sort of unspoken advice. He must get what he’s looking for.

 

“Yeah. Alright.”

 

Bruce feels himself let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Jason shuffles – hobbles, sort of – to the table, spacing himself two chairs away from Bruce. Alfred resumes his kitchen duties, seemingly nonplussed. Tim is smoothing his tie, smiling innocently on the screen.

 

“ _Will Mr. Wayne be present at the gala?”_ Vicki questions smoothly.

 

“ _Wouldn’t miss it for the world, he told me,_ ” Tim replies.

 

“Timmy’s doing interviews with Vicki Vale?” Jason whistles long and low. “He draw a short straw or somethin?”

 

“Vicki isn’t bad to work with. Just persistent.” Bruce sips  on his coffee. “She’s been asking for information since everything happened.”

 

If Jason seems bothered by the vagueness, he doesn’t show it. It’s hard to know what the right thing to say is. Bruce never really seems to have his words down pat. Navigating a conversation was never a strong suit of his unless it was business or charming women — but it wasn’t _real,_ not really. Bruce Wayne’s playboy exterior came out in short bursts, in front of a bunch of people. Being in the kitchen with an estranged son was not something he ever really prepared for.

 

He tries anyways.

 

“How are you?”

 

He tries to make it sound like run of the mill questions. Jason’s gaze flickers away from the TV at him and then back again. Alfred sets down a cup of coffee in front of Jason as well.

 

“Breathing. Getting better at it.”

 

Jason adjusts his Henley in a way that is nothing short of deliberate. Bruce had already seen the outline of his frame, bulked with what experience points to being Ace wrap and gauze. Dick had promised and delivered Leslie’s records to him before coming home; Alfred had supplemented him with information when Jason started fighting with pneumonia. He _sounded_ better, at least. There wasn’t a haggard wheezing to him.

 

Bruce remembers the one of the first times the boy was ever wounded in their line of work. He had bulked up a little then, filled out what once was a gangly twelve-year-old frame. Mr. Freeze had taken a shot at him, grazed his temple and temporarily blinded his right eye. But Jason had arrived at breakfast, head bandaged, all grin and appetite and unbothered when Bruce suggested he don’t come to patrol.

 

He sat a little closer then, too.

 

“—swer? Nothing?” Jason in the now tilts his head, visibly annoyed. “Guess I’ll just go fuck myself then.”

 

“Master _Jason,_ ” Alfred admonishes sharply, lifting the spatula he was using threateningly. “Not in this household.”

 

Bruce blinks, startled that he had missed something. The change in routine had his mind wandering to far corners. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

 

“I was _trying_ to be civil.” Jason snaps back. “Asked how you were holding up, cause you’re so damn old.”

 

The air turns bitter, a behavior not uncommon with Jason, and Bruce frowns. This was supposed to be — well. He didn’t know what this was supposed to be. A nice breakfast didn’t seem right. Jason usually didn’t choose to be in the same vicinity. Just because the trek to the kitchen tired him out and Alfred’s insistence wasn’t worth fighting against didn’t make this of Jason’s complete own volition.

 

“I—“ Bruce clears his throat, and his brow furrows. “I’m not _that_ old.”

 

It seems to ease the tension a bit. Jason snorts at his protest.

 

“ _Sure_ you aren’t, B.”

 

His children make him so tired.

 

“Leslie removed the stitches a few days ago.” Bruce says. “I’m going back to Wayne Industries.”

 

“Surprised she’s letting you.”

 

“Starting slow.”

 

He hates that he can’t read Jason’s expression. It’s passive at best, uncharacteristically so – he’s used to disdain as a neutral ground. He’s thankful when Alfred sets a plate that’s a little more scarcely packed down in front of Jason.

 

He also hates that this is awkward. Bruce knew it would be. There wasn’t really a way to make it _not_ awkward; neither of them was incredibly sociable. Even less so than with one another. Jason didn’t like talking with Bruce if he could help it – if Bruce ever heard anything from him, it was second-hand, usually with Dick as the messenger. Jason had startled all of them when he dropped in on a patrol one evening, asking-but-demanding that they look into Bates.

 

_Figured you’d want a heads up before he became a big player,_ Jason had said. _You’ll need my help to track him down. Been following his trail for weeks._

 

Maybe they needed to go back to those roots.

 

“Have you done any more research on Duncan Bates since the attack?” Bruce asks, keeping it matter-of-factly. It seems to work better – the room relaxes a little bit. Jason’s focused on slicing away a piece of pancake with his fork.

 

“Hit a wall.” Thankfully Alfred’s back is turned when Jason shoves pancake in a slice that’s not etiquette-appropriate into his mouth. Bruce feels an unreasonable pang of nostalgia over it. “Tim is doing research on possible leads.”

 

“Do you remember anything from the attack?”

 

He’s trying. _God_ he’s trying. Jason looks bitter, tired, frustrated all at once, and the emotions smooth like the surface of a lake after the water’s done rippling. He chews, swallows, waits to answer.

 

“Nothing useful. Dick said it was a pretty big fall.”

 

Bruce doesn’t say much after that. There’s a lilt of irritation to Jason’s voice, mild as it is, and he’s not sure if he’s asked the wrong questions or if Jason’s simmering is targeted at something else.

 

On screen, Vicki Vale thanks Tim for his time.

 

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, when Bruce has finally fucked off to wherever and Jason’s back up in his room pouring over old research, his phone vibrates on the bedside table.  
  


 

INCOMING MESSAGE: TIM DRAKE

 

Blue Dahlia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if the formatting is fucked up. still publishing on a phone. yeehaw. 
> 
> HUGE shoutout to writing friend mizmahlia, who has been a gem through my absence and struggles. Mizzy wrote an excellent chapter of her fic Notes from Pennyworth for me. I highly recommend her writing. 
> 
> if you want updates my tumblr is havenesc. and there’s pretty cute new pony pics too. so there’s that.


	6. start to part two halves of my heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys. i'm not dead! i should be dead. but i'm not!
> 
> basically, a lot of life things. i have had about 50% of this chapter written during the holidays until my childhood dog died right after Christmas, so that sucked. life just kinda sucks but you do what you can. like writing an almost-10k chapter as a way of saying "hi, sorry, don't beat me, readers."
> 
> anyways. party hardy, hug your dogs, enjoy the (per usual) unedited chapter.

Jason’s mood is soured by the time Tim knocks on his door. His gaze flits across the information on the screen of his borrowed laptop, hungry, foul, and he doesn’t even hear if he actually gives Tim permission to enter. Only when Tim taps the rim of the laptop’s screen from the other side does Jason realize that he’s actually entered.

 

“You alright?” Tim asks, face a mixture of concern and confusion. He’s still got his business attire on, sleeves rolled and hair slicked back. Must’ve stopped by the office, long as it took him to get to the Manor. He works off one of his shoes as he perches on the side of the bed. “You’re wheezing.”

 

“Don’t worry about it.”

 

“Does Alf know?”

 

“Tim,” Jason says, and though it’s not cutting or childish, it is firm, and Tim looks like he gets the message. He doesn’t ask what’s got Jason in such a shit mood, either, which is all the better. It’s not Tim’s fault. He’s just a messenger.

 

“Alright, then,” Tim says slowly, “Well – I’ve got some extra information, thanks to Vicki. She’s heard of Bates before.”

 

That catches Jason off guard. “How the hell does Vicki know of him?”

 

“How the hell does she know _everybody?_ ” Tim asks, waving his hand. “She’s _Vicki._ I volunteered for an interview, took her to lunch, talked business. Not the point. Point is, is that she’s given me a location. Supposedly he’s set up shop around The Blue Dahlia. It used to be a big mob elbow-rubbing thing in the Prohibition. Now it’s an old-school boy’s club.”

 

Jason rests his head on his hand, thumb drumming lightly on the spacebar of the laptop as Tim relays the info. The name bothered him, irritated him, and there were notes in the Batcomputer’s archives of the Dahlia as a low-profile joint, but little else. Blue Dahlia was low-profile, alright. Scouring what he could find from his place in bed was, assuredly, killing him. He should be doing recon, for fuck’s sake, not sitting at Wayne Manor.

 

He doesn’t say it out loud. Christ, if Timbers thought he was going to make a jail break, he’d sound the alarm. Good kid or not, Jason didn’t trust his ability to keep a secret from the family further than he could throw him. The more Tim got involved, the less Jason wanted him to be anywhere near the search. For any of them to be near it.

 

This shouldn’t have been a family matter. Great job, Jason.

 

“Hey. Jay. Take it easy.” Tim pulled him from his paranoia by snapping his fingers. “Geez, Alfred give you a higher dose of meds today? You’re spaced out.”

 

“I’m –” Jason moves to scrub his face with his hands, but when the sling his arm’s tucked in to stops his left hand, he feels an unreasonable amount of anger well up in him. He pinches the bridge of his nose to keep himself grounded.

 

Flames. Ground flickering like beds of hot coal. Three men.

 

Dark hair spilling over one shoulder, crow’s feet, haunting eyes, a cold street.

 

“Cabin fever,” Jason finally says, and there’s truth to it. It comes out a lot angrier than he intends it to. “I’ve been cooped up too long.”

 

 _In the Manor_ almost follows right along with it, but he doesn’t say it. It’s got hot meals, good bed, access to good information – but the ghosts that lurk and the one person he’d like to avoid seeing most exist within it. Bad blood runs thick here. He’s been wallowing in it ever since Dick and Tim dragged him up the stairs.

 

Maybe it’s the way he said it that tips Tim off anyways. The young Drake-Wayne heir tilts his head, seemingly studying Jason, passive. “Theoretically, you _could_ go places. You’re up and walking around now. Not on your deathbed. I’m sure Alf would drive you.”

 

Jason clicks his tongue. “Yeah. I’m sure he’d jump at the chance.”

 

It wasn’t an issue of whether or not someone could take him. Jason just didn’t want to _be_ here anymore.

 

“I could drive you, if you’re not sure about him. Dick’s going to be in town for a few days too.”

 

Part of him feels frustrated that Tim’s trying this hard to be helpful, but the other part of him is actually bewildered. It’s not like he and his younger brother were ever _close –_ far from it. But the effort is a nice change of pace, even if Jay would never admit it.

 

Tim was the kind of kid you _expected_ to be the successor of the Robin title, and it stings.

 

“Just if you want it,” Tim says. “But I’ll let you think on it. The Dahlia’s not the only reason I came up. Babs found some more info than the original autopsy files of the victims. Looking back on it, they have a common theme.”

 

Jason perks up. Shit, progress is progress. If he could start filtering out counteracting drugs to Bates’ deliveries, that’d really put a wrench in the man’s gears.

 

Tim fishes a thumb drive from his coat pocket and hands it to him. “All the victims that died were living on the street or in bad conditions. Didn’t really have access to three meals a day, impoverished.”

 

“Welcome to Gotham City,” Jason says, already tired.

 

“All the victims had a really similar level of malnourishment. No food in their stomachs, started getting really dehydrated, their general average  BMI ranged in the 150s. There are people who have been arrested for being in possession, have had it for months, developed addictions, and haven’t had any adverse reactions.”

 

“It’s like a trigger effect,” Jason says. “It kills people who are already weak.”

 

Maybe it’s the way he says it that makes Tim look uncomfortable. “Yeah. It kills them with the same symptoms as a diamondback rattlesnake’s venom.”

 

Bates’ words, hazy as they are, ebb slowly into Jason’s memory. _“I’m just the contractor. Cleaning up this city one pest problem at a time.”_

 

“ _Fuck.”_ Jason says suddenly, letting his head fall back against the pillows. Anger jumpstarts his adrenaline, makes his free hand clench into a fist. “Goddammit.”

 

“What? What’s wrong?” Tim asks, alert and worried by the outburst. No doubt it’s scared the shit out of him; he only knows Jason’s three moods as angry, neutral, or dying.

 

Jason _is_ angry, but more than that he’s horrified. Bates was a fucking madman, but he was a genius businessman too.

 

“He said something, after the collapse.” Jason says, bringing his hand up to cover his eyes. His wheezing was worse is getting worse the more he gets rattled, and he knows he needs to settle — but frankly, he’s needed to settle his whole life and there’s not much in way of progress now.. “Didn’t remember anything from it until now. He’s targeting Gotham’s poverty.”

 

The fucking bastard. Going after people like that, after people who have _nothing_ , who live by the skin of their teeth and struggle with addiction. He’s gone and weaponized it, used it to kill people. There’s no shortage of poverty in Gotham despite Wayne Corp’s efforts. There’s _always_ people to fill disheveled rooms in Crime Alley. If some rich kids want to get high off it, sure, he’ll make extra money on the side and nobody important goes missing.

 

Nobody gives a shit if you’re poor.

 

“…Jason?”

 

Tim’s voice is cautious. He shared the horrified look on his face, but it wasn’t something he could relate to. Bates would have never been a threat to Tim. Ever.

 

“If you’re going to pity me, Tim, then get the fuck out of my room,” Jason snaps.

 

“That’s not it,” Tim retorts, sounding equally as annoyed, but it’s more sullen. Like he’s disappointed somehow. “Do you remember anything else he said? Anything he did?”

 

Jason lifts his arm off his eyes and stares at the high ceiling, rattling his brain. It was a haze. All of it. If he had taken a spill and gotten shish kebab’d like Dick and Leslie said, he’s not surprised if he had suffered a concussion. It had come as a surprise when he ran a comb through his hair earlier in the week and saw the scarring-in tissue of a burn mark on the side of his temple, a large streak. A bullet had struck right through his helmet at some point. Even now, as he grazes his fingertips over it, he can’t remember.

 

 _Bruce might know,_ Jason instinctively thinks, but this isn’t the old man’s  fight anymore. The less he’s involved, the better.

 

“My helmet had visuals and audio,” Jason says slowly.  “I built it to boost audio if the visuals were taken out.”

 

“But—"

 

Jason uses his good arm to push himself into an upright position and swings his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m going to see what I can find.”

 

Tim lifts his hands, palm-out like he’s trying to stop him, and yet simultaneously steps aside to give him room. “Take it easy, Jason.”

 

“Don’t tell me to take it easy,” Jason growls back, reaching for his crutch, but rather than back off Tim gets indignant. The younger brother snatches the crutch before Jason can grab it, face lighting up with a controlled look of anger.

 

“What’s your _problem?_ ”

 

Jason knows he shouldn’t itch for a fight. Not with Tim. It’s not his fault. (Whose fault is it? And to what crime are they being punished for?)

 

But _fuck._ He _shouldn’t,_ but it’s a familiar feeling. He was always the combative one. Always _is_ the combative one. It shouldn’t come as a shock.

 

“I’m trying to work on this case. If I can’t be let out of my fuckin’ cage, then I’m at least going to try to see what I can do to stop people dying.”

 

“Uh, _yeah_ – that’s the whole point I got that information from Vicki for you. _I_ did that,” Tim retorts. “I was _also_ the one who pulled those results from the drugs. We’re working on this case _together._ ”

 

It wasn’t ill-intentioned with Tim, really, but Jason _hated_ how fucking braggy he sounded when he used his detective work as leverage. It makes him madder. It’s not a shock that it makes him madder – he’s already mad, and it kind of pisses him off that he doesn’t know exactly why, either. He knows the goddamn kid is whip-smart. He doesn’t need to be reminded of it.

 

“This – I wasn’t supposed to be depending on anybody for this,” Jason says, almost lamely, because it’s hard to say _thanks, but_ when he’s mad. And he’s had enough of the family’s nose in his business. “I didn’t ask for that kind of fucking help, Tim, I just have to live in this place because I don’t have a choice.”

 

Hurt flickers across Tim’s face before the lines of his face set into a simmering kind of anger. Jason feels a twinge of guilt but doesn’t budge. He can’t afford to. Maybe it will make Tim think twice about including Jason in their little Bat’s Nest.

 

“Fine. Go examine your damn helmet.” Tim walks back as he says it, throwing his arms out in a ‘ _forget it’_ gesture. “See if I help you out again. Dick already said the damage was too much to get anything from it, but _whatever._ ”

 

Just like that, he disappears down the hall. It takes a few seconds for the silence to settle around Jason like dust, and the way his heart throbbed told him he had gotten loud. No doubt at least one other member of the family would have heard of it.

 

Who gives a shit. It’s not like he was a favorite amongst them anyways.

 

* * *

 

“Jason.”

 

The young Labrador scratches at the window across from him, licking the spot where Jason’s hand is pressed against the glass. The window was broad, almost floor-to-ceiling, and the yellow glow from the pet shop’s interior spills out over the pavement. In big, hand-painted letters, the window reads: WILSON’S ANIMAL EMPORIUM.

 

“ _Jason._ Not today.”

 

It takes him another second to pull his eyes away. His mom is getting tired already in the cold weather; sometimes on this route in the past, they’d stop in the shop and just look, though Jason suspects as he gets older that she does it more to get out of the heat or the cold of Gotham’s elements for a little bit.

 

Being outside the apartment was hard on her. If his dad was there, he could get what she needed for her – but it’s going on four days now and he’s gone again. Maybe in jail. _Most likely_ in jail. Willis was on a first-name basis with Gotham PD’s finest, by now. The responsibility falls onto Jason.

 

Or would. But Mom got out of bed, motivated by the tremors in her hands and the headache behind her eyes. “We’ll go together,” She told Jason. “You can help me. We’ll spend the day together.”

 

Jason likes it when he gets to spend time with her. She was kind, in her own quiet way. His dad’s absence made her more docile, more at ease. No yelling or crying. Lately it seemed like she spent more time asleep, or, if she was awake, incapable of understanding him or who he was. It was touch and go. Sometimes she was there, sometimes not. Today seemed like one of the better days.

He wasn’t going to argue.

 

The alley behind the pet shop had three other alleys intersecting it. With Jason’s help his mom directed him, the two huddled together against the cold, wet weather and Jason’s arm hooked solidly around his mother’s lest she fumble or slip. The one in the middle, cross the street, keep going down the alley until you could see the rust-colored paint peeling off an old door. The dusk made it harder for it to see – there wasn’t much of any light in the alley – but it didn’t stop his mother. She always knew the way.

 

These trips weren’t filled with much conversation anymore. Not that they _used_ to be, but sometimes he and his mom would go for an outing when Dad wasn’t around and she’d have the energy to talk a lot more. Joke, too. Jason liked it when she joked around and ruffled his hair.

 

That was a long time ago. Jason had to struggle to let go of her arm as she knocked, had to let her carry herself on her own two feet. He was there to help in case things went bad; if they saw she was dependent on him the guys would eat them alive.

 

One knock. Pause. Four more. Pause. One-two. One-two.

 

There’s a moment of silence before the door opens inwards so harshly Jason felt his mother sway with the wind. “Get in,” Someone says, male and gruff and all business. Neither of them argue.

 

There’s been a total of three times that Jason’s stepped foot in this place, and even on the third time he still hated it as much as the first. It sent his fight or flight on the fritz, exacerbated by the fact that neither option was a good one. Gotham’s seedy underbelly saw them, dark hair and pale eyes and skinnier than they should be, and jeered for the both of them to get close enough to taste. As they descended down the steps and into the refurbished, blown-out city bomb shelter — somebody said the Wayne family installed them back in the forties to reassure the public, which meant a whole lot of nothing to Jason — the noise went from a minor buzzing of activity to loud, with folks talking shop, music in the distance, women talking amongst themselves but still calling to passerbys.

 

They weren’t allowed to look up. They didn’t give enough business to see anything that might get them in trouble. Jason never lifted his head enough to make the patrol close on their heels with an AR-15 threaten him, but he would glance from his peripheral. Illegal weapons. Hitmen for hire. Drugs laid out on a table like it was a farmer’s market. Jason stops looking when he catches a glimpse of a woman so barely clothed his ears burned red.

 

He hated this place. He hated everybody in it. He hated that his mother had to come here.

 

He wishes she  wouldn’t. But all the other options are too expensive. So here they walk.

 

The guy they want is holed up in a corner stall, clean and pressed and not bothered by the filth around him. His clothes are dark but well-taken care of. Maybe expensive. When they’re allowed to look at him Jason finds his eyes drawn to the watch on his wrist, and he remembers wondering how much it should have cost. Or rather what the man had to do to someone to get it.

 

“Catherine,” The man — who had never told them his name — rose  up from his seat on the couch in the corner and took her hands, kissing her on either cheek. Jason noted the way she shook a little as she turned her head to each side to give him access. “You’re looking better.”

 

 _Bullshit_ , Jason thought, but he said nothing. His mother was very strict with him on the rules of this place.

 

“Thank you,” Catherine replied,  painfully tired-sounding. She was a willow of a person, swaying gently in the wind and clinging onto the man like she’d disappear if she didn’t. “Thanks to you, I am.”

 

“I knew it would help,” The man said, empathetic as he slowly worked his hands from hers. His voice was low, gravelly, with a subtle accent of a spaniard. “The usual?”

 

“I…I have a little more this week,” She said. Jason watched silently as she fumbled with her layers of clothing, hand delving into the base sweater  to pull a chunk of cash. A _big_ chunk of cash. When had she gotten it? He knew where _some_ of it came from. He’s had to throw men twice his size out of their house before. But this — this was not like any kind of money he’d seen from her.

 

Catherine moved to take one of the man’s hands in her own and placed the rolled bills in his palm. “Do you— would you have anything stronger? Something that lasts a little?”

 

The man contemplated for a moment. “Maybe.”

 

If Jason could do what he wanted, he would have told this man to get fucked, grabbed the money, and dragged his mom out. They shouldn’t have been here. They should have never come. But she was sick and this was what she wanted, and here it was too dangerous to argue. But Jason’s jaw still stiffened as the man grabbed a leather case and thumbed open the locks, browsing with his finger until he found the right one. The bottle he produced was heavy-looking and heavy-sounding.

 

“Here. This should help.”

 

Catherine took it, gentle and almost idolizing the little bottle in the way she examined it. “Thank you,” She said, barely audible above the general noise of the place. “Thank you.”

 

“Thank _you._ I look out for my regulars.” The man flashed a smile; all Jason saw was the grin of a hyena, predatory and looking for an easy meal. _He got what he wanted._

 

“I won’t have another shipment coming in for another two months, so make that last if you can,” He continued, and Catherine nodded hastily. She thanked him one, two more times, and then the patrol motioned for them to head back. They might be his regulars, but they weren’t welcome. Jason didn’t hesitate to increase the pace back, and with his mom’s relief she seemed to do better with the faster pace.

 

“We can go home now,” Was all she told him when they stepped back out into the cool air. Jason turned to look back over his shoulder — no doubt they were listening — but when he took his mom’s arm his grip in his elbow was tighter than necessary. She seemed to be in better spirits, though, and did not complain.

 

Jason got the both of them just to the edge of the alley before they heard footsteps. Fast ones. Just as he starts to break over into a jog, the bouncer from the door nearly wrenches Catherine off her feet by an iron grip on her arm. Her yelp and force of backward motion makes Jason scramble to stay on his feet, hair straight up on the back of his neck. “ _Hey!”_

 

Without a moment’s hesitation the boy launched himself at the man, almost three times the size of him, and manages to land a box hit on the guy’s ear. The guy barely flinches at the impact, rather looks more irritated by the attempt, and drawing Catherine close to his body he uses his free hand to slug Jason. The impact catches him square in the nose – an ugly crunching noise, nothing and then blood gushing freely – and it sends Jason to the ground, winded.

 

“You think fake money’s gonna work? You think we ain’t seen that before?” The man growled, gruff and no-nonsense as he throws the money on the ground. Catherine shrinks from him, wide-eyed and terrified, but she couldn’t break herself from his grip.

 

“It’s real,” She said, her trembling voice barely more than a whisper, “It is real, it’s a tip---”

 

The man struck her across the face, hard, and she would have screamed if he had not already covered her mouth with his hand. “Don’t give me that shit. That’s not our fuckin’ problem. It _is_ your problem, though, and you’re gonna pay one way or another.”

 

It was a struggle for Jason to get back up – he found himself dazed, blood dribbling into his mouth and down his chin, but his mother’s desperate muffled pleas made him find strength and fury like nothing else. He scanned his surroundings quickly; there must be something, anything he could have used. There was a small glint in the dark, and he scrambled for it. Yes, a bottle!

 

His aim was off. It would have been better if he had yelled, maybe, to get the attention of the asshole, but he wanted the element of surprise. The bottle landed hard enough to shatter across the back of the man’s bald head, startling and wounding him, and he dropped Catherine in his shock with a loud yell. As he ducked over, hand cupping his head, Jason was already running to him.

 

“Leabe my mom alone!” The boy shouted, and with a broad sweep of his leg backwards he kicked the man’s descending jaw hard.

 

It did not leave a crack like the man had done to his nose, but it connected better than Jason’s fist would have. The man was knocked back by the blow, not off his feet but enough to stagger, and he grunted. Jason rushed him again, not giving him any recovery time, and took another kick at the big son of a bitch’s groin.

 

That lays him out. Catherine’s calls to him fall on deaf ears as Jason lands another kick to the guy’s stomach, swearing, angry that a guy like that would dare handle his mother in that way. The creak of a door opening is his only warning as two more guys, not as big but just as fit-looking as the first, come to help their comrade.

 

It’s no holds barred. Jason straightens up just in time to duck the first swing, instinctively gritting his teeth and immediately regretting it as his head flares with pain. His advantage is that he’s quick – he’s a small moving target, and the guy taking shots at him is double his size and not expecting a kid to know how to fight. Jason arches his back to avoid a slug and hooks left and right messily, his blows hitting the guy on either side of the jaw.

 

Catherine shrieks again and pulls Jason’s gaze for a split second too late. The second goon went straight for her – had her by her hair – and she was fighting, too, spending energy she didn’t have on getting away. If they got her to the door they were both done for. Jason steps in her direction and sees stars as knuckle meets jaw, his head snapping back so hard he swears he felt his crown touch a shoulderblade.

 

“We’re not done here,” The guy sneers, standing over him. Jason only flips over onto his stomach and scrambles to get up, to get to his mom, to save her from her attacker, but the weight of his assailant settles on his ribcage and grapples his arms behind his back. A strong arm snakes around his neck, locking in place, choking him, as the guy leans close to his ear. “ _We’re not done here._ ”

 

There’s only the sound of fluttering fabric, as far as Jason can tell, before he can hear his mother grunt abruptly and a choked scream not from her cuts off. The sounds of fists connecting follow.

 

“ _Fuck!_ It’s the Bat!” Jason’s attacker says, releasing him in his fear, but even as he steps off there’s a yelp and the sound of fists connecting blows.

 

The Bat— _THE_ Bat – was there. Jason coughs and sputters, blood still pouring down his chin, but he can see the Dark Knight easily dodging a haphazard swing from one of the goons even in the dim light. Batman. He was real. All the rumors were real.

 

And he was beating the _shit_ out of those guys.

 

 The door creaks. Jason doesn’t hear much more – doesn’t pay much attention after that. As shouts of alarm ring out, the boy picks himself up off the dirty alley floor and runs to his mother amidst the fighting, hauling her to her feet. She fights him at first, nearly bites him, but stops just short when he hauls on her arm in the opposite direction.

 

He’s never seen his mother run before.

 

Jason keeps pace with her as they both run, hand-in-hand, across the street and back into Gotham’s underbelly away from the scene. They sprint until they’re both sucking air by the time they reach Crime Alley, haphazardly punching the code to unlock the stairs up to their apartment, and Catherine’s last ounce of strength is burnt as she waits for Jason to fumble with the lock on their door. She goes limp – conscious -- right as the door clicks open. Jason has to struggle to pull her dead weight in through the door.

 

“The pills,” Catherine gasps, breathing like she’s a fish out of water, as she pulls the bottle from her coat, “Unscrew…. The lid… for me.”

 

Jason, heaving and trembling and bleeding like a stuck hog, does as he’s asked. He pours one – she shakes her head no – pours two, three, four until she finally nods. There’s no water to take them with.

 

It doesn’t matter. She does anyways.

 

News of the arrests made starts to circulate by the morning when Jason finally steps out into the street, hoodie covering his head. The criminal nesting ground had been flushed out – there was no mention of Batman anywhere in the articles that Jason saw from just standing in front of the news stand. All of the credit went to the GCPD – the supposed sting operation, the arrests, everything. Jay found himself staring at the names, wondering if one of them was the man who had kissed his mother’s cheeks and did not mind when she clung to him for support.

 

“Hey, kid,” The newsagent said, waving his hand. “No standin’ around readin’ it. Either buy one or scram.”

 

Jason didn’t feel the fire he normally did at being told to fuck off for just standing around. He shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets, ignoring the ache in his knuckles, and moved on.

 

“Did you see his _face?_ ” An elderly woman whispered to the agent, not realizing she was not out of earshot. His eyes were raccoon-looking with bruises mottled all across his face, deep blues and purples and swelling across his broken nose and busted lip. His jacket hood obscured most of it, but not all. “Do you think a boy like that even _can_ read?”

 

Jason might have flipped her off, called her an old bat, done something to get back at her for her sense of superiority, but in reality he was just tired. His face hurt. His body throbbed. He’d had enough trouble for the week.

 

His mom wasn’t speaking anymore after that. Wasn’t doing much of anything, really. The days and nights that followed, he did what he could. Stole food, medicine, dragged water up the stairs — anything. He’d talk to her and try to get her to move and would see if she would eat. But she didn’t. After that night she was just a vessel, hollowed out. He never even saw her take any more pills – just lay there, drifting between awake and asleep, unaware of anything around her.

 

Catherine Todd died two weeks later.

 

* * *

 

“Computer, bring up case files for August 20th of this year.”

 

The stairsteps down to the cave were illuminated by a backlight but fully light up now as Jason addresses the Batcave’s inner mind. It chirps in acknowledgement as he hobbles down, in a bitter mood and impatient. The files are pulled up, flashing one by one — the profiles of himself and Bruce, the articles surrounding the building’s collapse, the statements input by each member of the family with all the information they could accrue. Jason’s read it, read all of it at least ten times over since he could feel well enough to investigate. He doesn’t wait for the documents to finish uploading before he issues another command.

 

“Computer, bring up the evidence from Case 78324A.”

 

The batcomputer chirps at him again in acknowledgement. Still updating the screen with any scrap of information the family deemed necessary to load into the file, the whir of hidden gears and the hiss of a mechanism at work greets Jason as he reaches the broad desk. Slowly, he sets down his crutch and works to loosen the strap that holds his sling together until he can slide it over his head and free his casted forearm. His fingers have come back a little from their atrophy, thanks to his habit of moving them throughout the day, but the cast goes over the base of his knuckles. It’s going to be a frustrating job.

 

“Case 78324A: Evidence,” The computer says, enunciating every number with a brief pause in between each one. Off to the right of the computer’s mainframe, the floor slides out and a table rises up, compartmentalized to keep each piece separate. Jason watches it as it rises, takes note of the things they archived.

 

Bruce’s damaged kevlar, ripped up and tinged darker with dried blood. The cowl mask with the cracked edge, not quite missing a piece but certainly not intact. Rubble from the scene with ash marks blasted across them. A shoe print, no doubt confirmed to be that of Bates. Jason’s jacket, singed and torn and too bloodied to regain the original tan leather coloring. The rebar — Jason’s body twinges a little involuntarily, uncomfortably, the way he used to at the sight of a crowbar— broken up into three pieces, rusted out but expertly cut clean into sections. A thick folder labeled RECORDS, which from experience Jason knows is the police reports, hasty doctor’s notes written by Leslie, data recording of physics and blast radius and hypotheticals that Babs or Tim will sometimes write up to be submitted later. It’s all housekeeping anyways. All of it is already up on the Batcomputer.

 

The helmet, when Jason can bring himself to really look at it, looks like it could have seen better days. The exterior is shattered, _really_ shattered, with cracks cascading up from the impact site over the brow and down under the jawline. A large entry wound exposes the dark interior, likely from the bullet he took when Bates’ men opened fire. He subconsciously reaches a hand up to touch the hidden burn of the bullet on the side of his head and doesn’t feel much like complaining about being overdue for a haircut.

 

He pries his cast wrist out of his sling and picks the helmet up off the table. The movement is awkward and bulky, which lights up Jason’s impatience and funnels it into his frustration. He blurts out a “Fuck,” through gritted teeth as he scrabbles with what use of his fingers he can manage, propping up the helmet so that the underside is exposed. The recording device was designed to sit right below his right ear, which means he got lucky; there’s almost no damage to it. Doesn’t make it any easier to pull the chip.

 

Frustration is both his friend and his worst foe. Jason wants to just day _fuck it, I’ll do it on my own anyways,_ and hurl the helmet into the wall. Not really a fix, because the casing wouldn’t even crack or shatter to make him feel better. An irrational of him wants to break his fingers, too, just for being atrophied and useless. But the flip side to it is spite makes him determined, even if bitter, and he perseveres through the grasping and the tugging until the chip comes away free from behind the lining. Seems intact. Good enough.

 

Jason lets the helmet drop back onto the evidence table and inserts the chip. His bad mood has already made him tired. Disgruntled. He almost wants Dick’s analysis to be true, that there was a malfunction or nothing found in the helmet to be worth something. But he wants fast  answers more than he wants to dig, and since he psuedo-fired Tim, he figures this has got to be better than nothing

 

“Reading Data,” The Computer says, calm and ever-mechanical. Jason taps the rim of the desk.

 

The bar fills slowly. He’s not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.

 

“Read: Complete. One audio file found.” The computer brings up the file, which clocks in well over ten hours in recording. Jason reads the soundwaves as they load in as one big stretch. There’s one big spike to dwarf the others, and the waves slowly die out afterwards. Most of it is quiet, even with the vocal boost. Jay ponders for a minute, then uses the touchpad to scrub along the audio.

 

“—

“— _Goddamn stubborn forces of nature_.”

 

Jason hisses through his teeth. He doesn’t really like (and by “doesn’t really like” means “abso-fucking-lutely _hates”_ ) the sound of his voice being played back. The sound of fire crackling makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up, bringing up a multitude of memories clashing that threaten to overwhelm him. He still sits, listens, unmoving except for the very light bounce of his right leg.

 

“ _Been hangin’ around a nightclub in underground. Blue Dahlia or somethin’ like that, fuck, dude, we don’t get paid enough for this_ please—“

 

A gunshot sounds off and Jason doesn’t listen to the rest of it, just scrubs through. Tim was right, at least – Jason thinks he _might_ owe him an apology if he can swing it – but it’s not what he was here for. His anxiety was ramping up enough as it was.

 

There was a large spike in the audio, a huge block of what undoubtedly is the explosion, slowly tapering off into a silence. It stretches on; then, a ripple of sound. Jason swallows hard and hits play.

 

_“Well. Looks like it might have been overdone.”_

 

A pause. _“He’s alive._ Some _how.”_

Jason hears that voice and closes his eyes. He knows that voice – has heard it time and time again in distant memories, sweet-talking business to his mother. It’s like nails to a chalkboard. What feels like ice drops down the back of his shirt, and he shivers. It makes him angry. He’s faced dozens of crooks, villains, metahumans, and this of all things?

 

Bates’ voice tuts. “ _We could have used him. The others say there’s no love lost between him and the Batman.”_

 

_“It’s to our benefit anyways. The Bat’s around here somewhere – he’s the main point. We can’t forget him if we want the others to pay attention.”_

A long whistle. _“Still not used to Gotham. And they think_ Southerners _are the odd ones.”_

_“This whole city is full of freaks, sir. It’s just my job to navigate it.”_

_“You’re doing well, Cavallo. The freaks make it interesting, at least.”_

Suddenly there’s a quiet rustle of fabric, but a loud grunt follows. There’s a scuffle – the sounds of punches, struggling, but a shotgun blast sounds off so loud in the surround sound that Jason grimaces and resists the urge to clap his hands over his ears. Bruce. Jason hears him choke and stumble.

 

“ _Speaking of freaks,”_ Bates says, sounding ruffled – Jason thinks he’s probably the one Bruce went after – as the sounds of footsteps draw farther away. “ _Looks like we have our bargaining chip. They won’t have a choice but to respect the business now.”_

_“Heh. Sometimes it takes a little outside help to do some pest control.”_

 

There’s a horrible, guttural hacking noise close in proximity, and the suddenness of it makes Jason jump. He recognizes it as himself. The phantom pains (real?) twinge in his gut and take the air out of his lungs.

 

Footsteps draw closer, louder, and he hears the rattle of his own breath. He recognizes the noise, feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up, feels an instinctual kind of fear that he’d never admit he possessed.

 

“ _Looks like it’s not over yet. Shake n’ Bake, Hood. Get up.”_

 

Jason sits and listens in his misery as the memory slowly comes back, word by word, piece by piece. It’s so real in his head he can taste the copper in the back of his throat, frigid in his seat as if rebar pinned him there. Bates keeps talking and he just keeps letting him. The bounce in his leg intensifies and were it not for the heavy cast on his left he’d sure it would be bouncing right alongside it.

 

It was a miracle they both got out of there alive. Really. The audio continues and Jason can hear, can _see_ the exact moment he acknowledges Bruce. It floods him, threatens to make him lose his shit, but a part of him still wants to hear it. The memories come easy now, faded and bloodied as they are. He’s glad none of the other members of the family have heard it; Jason wouldn’t have heard the end of it from Tim or Damian, and he’s already going to have to deal with the fact that Dick probably knows exactly what’s in the audio.

 

Jason lets his head lean back against the chair and closes his eyes, grimacing, as he hears himself struggle to breathe. It makes his chest twinge.

 

 _“You didn’t let me down, Jaylad._ ”

 

It hits him like a solid punch to the stomach, taking the wind out of him. Bruce’s voice was soft even through his pain, quiet and reassuring. Very unlike the Bruce he knows now, the Bruce that shouted and lectured as he dragged him across a rooftop, the Bruce that kept conversations to business, the Bruce that didn’t reach out unless he felt that he absolutely had to.

 

It was the old Bruce speaking. It was the Bruce who sat with him on the couch instead of patrolled. It was the Bruce who ruffled his hair when he finished his homework. It was the Bruce who pretended to be surprised when Jason thought he got the jump on him. The one who called him that.

 

Jason hated it. Hated it for existing, hated it even more for it’s disappearance now. The twinge of nostalgia hurts and makes his eyes gloss over.

 

_“I... miss it.”_

_“Miss what, Jay?”_

A long pause. _“Home.”_

 

“ _Fuck,_ ” Jason almost shouts, growling it as he rubs his fingers across his forehead. This was a lot. This was _more_ than a lot. Fuck the Jaylad and the _I’m sorry_ ’s and the worry that Batman finally bit it. Dick didn’t keep this away from the others to save him the embarrassment – Jason needed to hear it first.

 

Home. What _was_ home? The fuck was he on about? Jason hits pause and looks around him, feeling the same kind of aggression he felt at Tim boil back up in his chest.

 

“This isn’t home,” He says loudly, more to himself than to the inanimate trophies.

 

Home is with Kori and Roy. Home is with Artemis and Bizarro. Home is people who – maybe they didn’t _love_ him like he did them, maybe he wouldn’t go so far, but they at least _cared_ about him. The Manor was a big house with big rooms and people who couldn’t let him redeem himself. The Manor was a place where he was shunned for his mistakes, overseen by someone who didn’t know – didn’t _want_ to know – how to fix things.

 

Jason doesn’t take a second longer to eject the audio drive as he hears the slide of the grandfather clock entrance.

 

He gets up and tosses it in the helmet’s casing, trying hard to look like he’s simply leaning and surveying the collective evidence just as Dick comes down the steps. His burned jacket looks particularly interesting.

 

Dick stops at the base of the stairs behind him. Jason doesn’t say anything.

 

“You’ve heard it,” Dick says, a statement rather than a question.

 

Jason glances over his shoulder, blinking hard. Goddammit. He didn’t realize he was getting that choked up – thankfully, if Dick noticed the undoubtedly red tinge to his face, he kept his mouth shut.

 

“I wanted to crosscheck facts with what Tim was coming up with.”

 

“Bullshit.” Dick swearing startles Jason, but it wasn’t hostile. Just matter of fact, like he was confirming a chance of snow tomorrow, “You already knew he had solid evidence.”

 

Yeah. He did. Jason turns back to the computer. He knows Dick’s trying to tread lightly, but it’s not helpful. They were never attached at the hip; no reason to start it now. Doesn’t stop the mild feeling of shame that settles in Jason’s chest at snubbing Tim.

 

“Who else knows about it?”

 

“Nobody. I didn’t think you would really want them to know.”

 

Jason scoffs. “You lied to them? I didn’t think you were capable of that, Dickie-bird.”

 

Dick comes to stand next to him, hands in his pockets as he side-eyes his younger brother. “Sometimes it pays to be the _Golden Boy._ ”

 

Oof. It’s not like it was a secret, really, but Jay didn’t think anybody ever really used that term in front of him. Would any of the family use it? No. Probably not. That was definitively a Jason thing. Dick has probably been around Jason in a doped-up state enough the last few weeks alone to hear it slip.

 

“Besides, would you really prefer I _didn’t_ lie to them?”

 

Dick’s got him there, Jason thinks, because no – he really wouldn’t. The family was trying a little too hard to pity him, and it was part of the reason why he was going mad. He’d had enough of the pity party. If they knew the exact play-by-play of his near-death experience, and the things he said to Bruce, there would be no end to it. They would try to see him for the old Jason.

 

And he didn’t exist anymore.

 

Jason turns his chair to look across the floor of the Batcave, staring at the open space. His anxiety isn’t forgotten; it pools in his stomach, flooding his veins, Bruce’s voice echoing in his ears.

 

“But now that you’ve heard it,” Dick says slowly, “What’s running through your head?”

 

He ponders. Ponders some more. There’s nothing philosophical, or anything he would bring to therapy, if that’s what Dick wants out of him. His grip is white-knuckle on his chair and his energy is pent up from the last weeks of rest. He’s tired but he’s wired and there’s nothing much more he can say. Words don’t come by him easily.

 

“I want to break something.”

 

Dick purses his lips and drops his gaze to the floor, nodding. Was he expecting that kind of response? Assumed Jason would want to do that?

 

 Jason feels himself prepare to get defensive. It’s second nature at this point. After a beat, however, Dick simply walks to the central expanse of the cave’s main floor. It’s a wide space behind the Batcomputer’s main frame, the loading bay for most things and their parking spot on night patrol. Here, now, it’s empty. It makes the cave seem bigger; more like oblivion.

 

“Computer,” Dick says, and there is little but a hum in response, “Set up Custom Training Session 926.”

 

The computer chirrups in response and the hologram comes to life. From the floor up comes a few podiums, each different in size and spacing from one another. Atop them sit false objects – pots, box TVs, lamps, each of them precarious and easily breakable household objects. An arsenal of various weapons pops up where the evidence tray had existed. Dick turns to look at his brother, his gaze soft and sympathetic, like he knew it wouldn’t fix anything but still had to try.

 

“So do it, Little Wing.”

 

Jason recognizes it. _He_ made it. A long-ago time, when he still wore the bright colors and started to butt heads with Bruce, this was his own stupid way to blow off steam when he was by himself in the cave. If Bruce disapproved, he never said anything to Jason’s face, but Jay wouldn’t have been surprised if he had gotten rid of it after everything. The more surprising thing was that Dick knew which code to put in.

 

Dick only shrugs when Jason voices his curiosity.

 

“I’ve just seen it set up before,” Is all he says, and when Jason waits for him to elaborate, he doesn’t.

 

“Alright.”

 

Jason hauls himself out of the chair unsteadily, teetering on a precarious one leg and cast on the other. Fuck the crutches. He’s sick of them. He half-shuffles, half-hops, half-hobbles to the evidence table. He picks up a bat; it’s familiar in his hand, something familiar, the ghost of muscle memory prompting him to adjust his grip. Fuck his cast, too – he’s sick of it. Who takes a swing with just one hand? (Guess he does now.)

 

Dick doesn’t offer to help him when he turns back around, though Jason can see he wants to. It’s etched into the lines of his face, the tension across his shoulders, but he’s trying hard. That’s nice, at least. Dick could be one real clingy son of a bitch, but he was learning that sometimes Jason really, _really_ needed to do things for himself. It was good for the golden boy to not come to everyone’s rescue.

 

Jason picks his target — a small, plain clay pot, the red-brown style found in the most basic of plant 101-ing. He knows he has to look awkward as he favors everything on his left side, but the imagery of himself just throws fuel onto the fire, and he swings back wide with his right arm. All his muscles across his chest twinge, threatening to make him collapse into a coughing heap, but it’s a weird kind of pain. Good. Like muscles that were being stretched after sleeping wrong.

 

He grits his teeth, grunts, and fires. The clay shatters satisfyingly against his bat. The pieces scatter in a cloud of dust, skittering to the floor. It’s all holographic — even for the Batcomputer’s processing ability, the very real-looking shattered splinters across the floor flicker and glitch at his feet. The impact felt real enough, the noise too.

 

Sick of this place. Sick of being here, trapped, surrounded by people who felt guilty. Sorry for him. Jason takes another haphazard swing at an antique of a carriage horse and revels in the noise of porcelain breaking. He’s sick of fighting, of feeling like an outsider. The few times he ever felt the authenticity of a relationship, his friends disappear, go off-world, find some way to leave him behind. He’s sick of being a shadow. Tired of being afraid, tiptoeing around the house. Waiting to be kicked out. Reliving some of the worst memories in his life.

 

Fuck Bates. Fuck Cavallo. Fuck Bruce. Fuck Batman.

 

A lamp breaks so badly it just disappears altogether. It’s as thrilling as he remembers it, in a weird, painful way, but it’s a collection of things – hitting, exercising, spending energy, spending his anger – that he hasn’t gotten to do in months that helps him.

 

He almost doesn’t catch the whistle of an escrima stick off to his left, startling him into stopping.

 

“ _I’m_ tired of being on the family pedestal,” Is all Dick grunts at first. Jason stares, breathing hard, as Dick roundhouses a tray of fake Swarovski glasses off the pedestal. It dawns on him that he must have been speaking out loud; his stomach tanks a little as he thinks about Dick hearing him, but there wasn’t any words of comfort from his older brother.

 

“Everyone looks to me for answers all the time, and I have to fake it like I have them.” Dick says. His anger is tempered, but raw – watching him is like watching a dormant volcano slowly burble back to life. Angry. Frustrated. “Everyone expects me to be right. To be happy. To smile when my dad and brother are dying.”

 

It throws Jason off. Dick had never said anything like this before. He always _was_ smiling, offering words of advice, letting Bruce’s stiff demeanor roll off him like water off a duck’s back. He was always an impenetrable source of optimism for the family. The glue that, even if haphazardly, held them together somehow. The bridge between siblings. The voice that could get to Bruce most. The Golden Boy. Jason never really thought how his brother handled his role. Jason felt like he understood, then, why he was desperately trying so hard now.

 

It wasn’t fair.

 

“I can’t always do that, and it makes it so _fucking_ —” Dick sends a mirror to the floor, “ – Hard.”

 

“So don’t.”

 

Jason focuses an upswing on another hologram, teeth gritted with the effort it takes to keep the arc steady. “Don’t keep trying to keep it together for all of us.”

 

Dick laughs behind him. “I wish it was that simple.”

 

“It can be.”

 

“It’s not.”

 

Their voices fight to be heard over the sound of hits connecting and things breaking. Jason’s wearing out; it’s hard to find the momentum. Eventually, he slows to a halt, breathing hard and fighting a cough.

 

“Dick, if you tell anyone I said this, I’ll kill you,” Jason says, hopping to readjust his weight, “But— I admired the shit out of you when I was a kid. I spent a long time trying to replicate your Robin.”

 

Dick stops dead and stares at him. They didn’t talk about his Robin days. Ever. Especially not when Dick remembers good and well that he wasn’t the nicest he could have been to Jason back then.

 

“I wanted to be just like you were when you were a kid.” They’re watching one another now. Jason hates how unfit he feels – Dick’s not broken a single drop of sweat, and Jason’s hair is soaked – “But it didn’t work. You wanna know why?”

 

Dick doesn’t say anything, just stares.

 

“Because you are _infinitely_ a better person than I will ever be. Without even trying.”

 

Jason held eye contact, firm and unmoving. It was true. He didn’t regret saying it. You don’t get into the kind of shit he did unless there is some part of you that’s just a god awful person. It’s why he killed — _used_ to kill. It’s why he shot his brother. It’s why he involves himself with the cartels. It’s why Batman himself had to take him down. It’s why he holds horrific grudges that he clings to so tightly he doesn’t know how to function without them.

 

Dick takes it wrong at first. “Didn’t you just hear me? I’m not perfect.”

 

“You’re not, dumbass. I know that better than anyone in this family. But you’re allowed to fuck up every once in a while. Get mad for once. Tell the youngsters to fuck off for a while.” Jason’s expression softens. “Don’t throw yourself off a cliff just to keep everyone happy.”

 

For a moment, Dick looked tired — more tired than Jason thought he had ever seen his older brother. More tired than he had ever let on.

 

“I wish this family could work like that. I do,” He says heavily, “But you know it’s not exactly _functional_. Even before we started taking a crack at Bates’ operations.”

 

It’s Jason’s turn to be silent, albeit awkwardly. Dick won’t really admit it, not accusingly – maybe he’s too scared Jason will up and leave if he does – but he doesn’t have to yell to be heard. The strain between Bruce and Jason is a strain on Dick, too. One that he doesn’t need. Dick runs around day and night, Nightwing and Batman, eldest brother and mediator, the head of the house where Bruce can’t make decisions. The family looks up to him, looks to him for peace. It’s hard to give peace when Jason’s unwilling to give it himself.

 

It’s too hard to make it that easy, though. Jason still feels the pool of fear in his gut from the anger Bruce held against him over his public executioner role. He _has_ tried. Tried several times. It’s just not meant to work.

 

“Dick, what you heard in those tapes…. That wasn’t me.”

 

Dick arches a brow.

 

“That –” Jason scrambles for words, feels the anxiety in his chest as he tries to explain – “I didn’t _remember_ saying those things. Christ, I was _dying._ I don’t know what I was thinking, saying that. But it’s not me. Bruce and I are not your problem to solve.”

 

“That’s exactly it, Little Wing. You were _dying._ Again.” Dick stows his escrima sticks in his belt, looking sympathetic in a way that Jason didn’t like. It meant he had figured out something that Jason didn’t.

 

“You said that stuff because you didn’t think you were going to get a third chance to say it again. Even if you don’t remember it, you said it.”

 

“I was losing a lot of blood, Dick.”

 

“You were being _honest_.”

 

Jason feels himself get defensive, which makes his temper flare – because he’s not here to be part of some weird therapy session. “There’s a bunch of dumb shit _you’ve_ said when you thought you were going to eat it.”

 

“But it was honest dumb shit.”

 

“Look. Me and Bruce – that’s not something you need to worry about. Okay? I’m only here until I can get back on my feet, and that’s just because I made a promise to you.” Jason hears the aggression in his voice and knows he’s probably overreacting, showing his whole hand.

 

Dick sees right through his younger brother, and the small, sad smile only makes Jason feel like garbage. “Look. I won’t ask you to be best friends with him. I’m just…. I’m just suggesting that I think it would be good to take what opportunities you have by being here. Even if you don’t want to think it’s home, you’ll always have one here. And just making even a small effort to get along will help me a lot.”

 

Jason didn’t really know what to say to that. Part of him knew he _did_ want it to be home – wanted it to be home so bad, scrambling for the old familiar. Wanted himself to belong again, even if for a little while. Back then the Manor had been bigger, the world had a little more hope, Alfred and Bruce didn’t see a ghost in the kitchen.

 

That was then. That was before. A bigger part of him is scared shitless of the task Dick is asking him to do.

 

“Bruce – I know he’s got a lot to work through. I’m not defending him. He’s put all of us through hell. I know he regrets it. We all do.”

 

The stay in Spyral. Batman’s supposed death, Tim’s ousting of Robin. The death (and resurgence) of Damian. They’ve all been put through their respective traumas in a way that just came with the territory. Out of all of them, Dick probably knows exactly what Bruce can do to his supposed loved ones.

 

“Sometimes regret isn’t enough, Dick.” Jason feels his defensiveness creep up his neck, but his tone is level. “I don’t know if it will ever be enough.”

 

It’s a hard truth. Regret _wasn’t_ enough. Regret didn’t stop Bruce, didn’t motivate the family to stop him. The wound ran deep and Jason still hurt.

 

Dick swallows. “I get it. But we’re not going to make the same mistakes anymore.”

 

Jason didn’t want to see his older brother beg. “Alright,” He says quickly, uncomfortable, but he almost regrets it soon as he makes that promise. He’s a lot of things, a lot of fucked up things, but he doesn’t think he could break a promise to his brother. Especially when he really thinks he’s started to understand him a little better, for once.

 

The relief washes over Dick’s face subtly. “Thanks,” Is all he says, and Jason can tell he wants to say more, but a _thanks_ is about the right threshold for his tolerance. Jason just nods in response.

 

It breaks the morbidity of the air. Composed now, devoid of the anger and cursing that had been apparent minutes ago, Dick heaves a sigh and checks his wristwatch. “It’s almost dinner. We better go back up. You want some help?”

 

Jason motions to the crutch still haphazardly leaning against the Batcomputer’s desk. Really, he did need help; his body hurt a decent bit. Dick was trying. Jason could let himself give in a little.

 

“Yeah, actually. I have a feeling going up will be trickier than going down was.”

 

Dick actually chuckles, and it sounds ten times lighter. Genuine.

 

“ _Now_   you get it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're sitting here like "the fuck, where's the good bruce and jason healing content," it's coming next chapter. next chapter is good vibes and 25% written. 
> 
> as usual, i'm havenesc on tumblr. if you wanna see pictures of my dog dressed as robin for 2019 halloween, go for it. shit's bananas cute.
> 
> thanks for reading.


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